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January 30, 2009 in Teaching the Word | Permalink | Comments (0)
Titus 2 Workshops
Total Mess to Total Rest
Feb. 12, 6:15-8:30pm
Home of Laura Summerford
Are you one of those ladies who just “think” about getting organized “one day?” Does keeping up with schedules, housework, grocery shopping, mail, papers, etc. leave you saying, “Just forget it!” Well, we have planned two great workshops to get you started. One will be on “Turning Your Piles into Files” and the other will be “Me, Get Organized?” We know that God is a God of order for a reason and over the next three months, we will be looking at ways to help us all follow His example. Come out for a night of fun and useful information. Bring your own time-saving/organizational tips to share and invite a friend. Sandwiches and chips will be served. For more information, contact Donna Spivey.
January 28, 2009 in Women's Ministry | Permalink | Comments (0)
The introductory material to the study of Matthew urges a complete paradigm shift from the consumer driven society in which we live. We are told that we can have whatever we want and we have made God a part of that system. Much of our thinking becomes not "What does God want for me?" but "What is the correct formula to tap into God's resources." What results is a total me driven approach to spirituality where we focus on everything I can do rather than on God.
January 28, 2009 in Teaching the Word | Permalink | Comments (0)
Hello Everyone,
January 27, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)
A recent post from Alan's blog: Downshoredrift.com
Jesus is my victory, but I feel like a loser.
Jesus is my life, but I feel like death.
Jesus is my salvation, but I feel lost.
Jesus is my hope, but despair settles about me.
Jesus is my light, but my eyes are dim.
The first half of each statement contains things that are objectively true about God and the life that He gives us, while the second half is how I feel right now. We must live out of those truths and reject the lies. Maturity requires it. I know all of that. But, sometimes, my feelings don't line up with what I know to be objectively true. Over the past week, I've seen and felt death and suffering. I've mourned with those who mourned and mourned myself. I've traveled, contemplated, prayed, and listened. I've been weary and felt broken down. I'm feeling older now. Those that I have loved and have marked my life with their presence are beginning to pass. My children are growing. Things are shifting. The lines around my eyes are growing deeper and my waistline is growing bigger. Loneliness bangs on my door. Questions about myself, life, my place in this world, and how God is to be known and followed attend my waking and lying down. The words, "the scans are clear," regarding my son, Caelan, are words of praise and I am grateful beyond belief, but my soul is singed from the nearness of the fire. I recognize how fragile life is and how we are guaranteed nothing. God cannot be controlled or coerced, nor can the things that I want from Him be extracted by my pleading.
God's sovereignty is not a comfort to me at this point. I know that He is God and I do not doubt His Lordship over creation. I also do not doubt His goodness or anything about His character. What I believe is not the question. But, we don't always experience what we believe, at least in the moment. Cassie. 4 years old and at clinic with her parents so they could hear where she stood with her cancer. Her Mom and Dad love her so much. They held her yesterday while we were there with Caelan and played with her. Her Mom talked about "mom" things like what foods Cassie ate and how she likes to play. She sat on her Dad's lap and he held her close. A little while later, while we got good news about Caelan, they found out that the tumors had spread through little Cassie's body and that there was nothing they could do. Thinking about objective truth doesn't alleviate my heartache for this family because their objective truth, at least the truth that grips them with cold fingers around their neck, is that their little Cassie is dying.
Erika tells me that of all the children and parents that she met when we started with Caelan's treatment 3 years ago, only 3 of those children are still alive. Death has taken all of them. Death will take all of us. Some of what I am feeling comes from seeing our limitations a little more clearly. We don't like to talk about death because it makes us feel uncomfortable. We want to pretend like we'll live forever and that things will keep getting better and better in this world. But, unless we look death in the eye, I don't think that we can understand what life really is. Unless we stare upon the horror of our sin and failure, I don't know that we can know what holiness really is. Unless we experience some of the groaning of creation expressed in the pain of loss and the sorrow that it produces in us when people we love are lost to us, then I don't know if we can experience the joy of the new birth. I'm not saying that we have to go out and search for suffering to really enjoy life. I'm saying that suffering comes to us all eventually, whether we like it or not. We will see it if we live with our eyes open and not deaden our hearts to the pain that exists all around us.
Jesus Wept. Jesus saw and entered into this pain. The Bible says in a couple of places that he was "moved with compassion." That literally means that he was moved in his bowels with deep feelings of compassion for people. Hebrews tells us that he is able to sympathize with our weaknesses and that He suffered too. Isaiah 53 tells us that Jesus was despised and rejected. He suffered and was crushed. Psalm 22 speaks to the loneliness and isolation of Jesus. We skip his passion to get to the victory of the resurrection and in doing so, we trivialize the work of Christ and separate him from us in our deepest need.
The Christian life is not all sunshine and roses just because Jesus is victorious over death. We are not Buddhists who find salvation in the absence of desire as we cease to feel anything. Yes, there is victory. But, we also recognize that God has placed eternity in our hearts (Eccl. 3:11). We are made in God's image. Death hurts so badly because we recognize deep in our hearts that it was never meant to be this way. God did not intend for us to die. He didn't intend for us to be separated from one another. We hurt and suffer when we experience things that do not line up with what God intended. Being made in His image, the pain that we feel when love is replaced by loathing, when relationships are broken, and when rejection takes the place of acceptance, only speaks to the eternity in our hearts that is being frustrated by the groaning of creation caused by the effects of sin. Death comes from sin (Rom. 6:23). When we fall short of God's glory and experience sin and its effects, it hurts, because we were meant to live for the praise of His glory (Eph. 1:12).
The Good News that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ arrives in the midst of suffering. Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life, shows up at Lazarus' tomb when all those that loved the man inside are broken by despair. He says, "Come forth" to people who have tasted death and its encroaching coldness. We don't experience more of Jesus by pretending that life isn't hard and that loss is not real. God is not closer when our heads are in the sand. Rather, it is in the suffering and darkness of despair that the light of Christ truly shines because He has taken our despair upon Himself. He enters into it and overcomes it. He grabbed it off of me. He took my rejection and my shame. He bore my sin and my pain. He became poor for me so that I might become rich in Him. He who knew no sin became sin for me that I might become the righteousness of God.
I don't feel better by convincing myself that everything is going to be okay and that things will work out the way I want them to. That doesn't always happen. It isn't happening for Cassie's family right now, or the other 5 families that I have encountered this week who have either lost loved ones or are losing them. My emotions only come in line with the objective truth of the victory of Christ when I meet Jesus in the real place, the dark night that engulfs us all at times.
Jesus comes to the prison to be with the convict who committed horrible crimes against innocent people. He is in the hospital room with the family saying good bye to a beloved husband and father. He is in the village with the mother holding her young child dying of starvation or dehydration caused by diarrhea, things that I don't have to worry about because I can eat and drink when I want. He is on the battlefield with the soldier who reaches down for his legs to find that his lower half is gone. He is with the woman who hears that her husband no longer loves her and has found another, after she has given her life to him and their children. He is with the man who hears from his employer that he is no longer needed and his job is being shipped overseas or is being given to someone younger, less experienced, and cheaper. He is with the alcoholic who has been clean for a year and started to get his life back together, only to be overwhelmed by the demons of the bottle and take that first drink that leads to another and another until he finds himself face down in his own vomit, having thrown his sobriety away. He is with all of us that suffer, all of us that can't stand to look at ourselves in the mirror, all of us that fail and sin and struggle and still call upon the name of the Lord.
You better know the real God when the dark night comes - the God who invades death, pain, and destruction and takes it upon Himself. The God who suffers is the only God who can meet our need. We were made in His image and only God can deliver us. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is good news because it speaks to our pain, our alienation, and our suffering, whether caused by us or others, and tells us that there is deliverance and freedom for all who look to Him. This life is not all there is. There is a life to come that is far beyond what we can imagine because Jesus is there and we will be with Him. He meets our need because He sees us in our pain and He comes after us. He is not a doctrine or a teaching. He is not a set of assumptions or speculations. He is God of Gods and He is my Creator and my soul only finds rest in Him.
_______________________________
I just got a phone call from the son of a man that I have have come to love and admire deeply over the past few years. The man's name is Roy Nutt. He's battled cancer for the past several years with great courage and just a few minutes ago, he finally succumbed, his body too weak to fight any longer. I saw him Thursday night in the hospital, tubes coming out of his body and him barely conscious. His faithful wife and children keeping watch in the waiting room. Roy was a man who struggled against cancer and fought it valiantly. He loved Jesus. Even though he suffered greatly, he was always thinking about others and prayed for my son, Caelan, everyday. He was in his late 70's when he passed away and was just baptized a few years ago because he wanted to obey God and had never been baptized. He was a good man and he was my friend and he will be missed greatly. Tears are filling my eyes as I write this because I am feeling the pain of how it is not supposed to be. We were not supposed to die. We were not supposed to grow old and suffer and lose the ones that are precious to us. I feel that pain and I have the strength embrace it, because while the pain is there the fear of what is coming for all of us is not. Perfect love drives out fear (1 John 4:18). I know that I am loved perfectly by a Savior who knows what I am feeling. Because Jesus wept at Lazarus' tomb, he understands why I weep at Roy's death. This is not how it was supposed to be and God knows it. And, it is to this world that He came to deliver all who would look to Him.
We do not weep as the world weeps. We do not suffer as the world suffers, without hope. Though the pain of loss is real and acute, it is not final. The God of Comfort comforts us in all our troubles. He invades the pain and the loss and the questions and the uncertainty. He is found there and He ministers the truth to us that this life is not all there is. He is Christus Victor, the conqueror of evil, death, sin, and shame. Facing my pain, I encounter Christ and my feelings come in line with the objective truth of the victory of Christ. Jesus is real and He is the Resurrection and the Life. He has overcome and He will overcome. He will wipe away every tear. Our sins are remembered no more. Our healing is complete in Him.
I don't know what to do with plastic Christianity that just tells us to be happy and that life with God will all be wonderful if I do everything right. I don't know what to do with a pack of lies that masquerades as biblical faith. I don't do everything right, and even if I did it would not keep death and suffering from my door. This world is convulsing in devastation because of the effects of sin and our flight from God. I experience the trauma of the Fall just like everyone else. But, it is into this rebelling, obstinate, angry world that Jesus came to deliver and set us free. He is on a great rescue mission, invading enemy territory and snatching us from the fire. We are in a world at war and I, for one, don't want to pretend that I don't feel the pain. I'd rather be honest about my suffering and bring it to Jesus than to pretend that it doesn't exist.
Roy's funeral is Tuesday. But, at this moment, his suffering has ceased and he has stepped outside of time and space and is complete in the arms of his Savior. He is experiencing life, real life, for the first time. For the first time he is experiencing life the way that it was meant to be. No tears. No suffering. No pain. Knowing as he is known. Complete in Christ. For the first time, his feelings and emotions are fully in line with objective truth and his questions are answered in the One who created, saved, redeemed, and delivered him. Roy is at peace, and because I know this and believe it as well, I find peace too - The peace that surpasses all understanding as I encounter the Prince of Peace in the midst of suffering.
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit in Philippians 3:10-11
January 18, 2009 in Knowing God | Permalink | Comments (0)
Are you ready to be interrupted by God in 2009?
A challenge from Jeff Palomino:
“God always works in the desert.” An
Army Chaplain said this to me two weeks into my Iraq deployment. The Chaplain was
assigned to another Forward Operating Base (FOB) and only came to our FOB every
other week. I and three other military members were meeting with him. He needed
volunteers to lead Chapel services each weekend he was gone. I was stoked but
apprehensive: “I didn’t come to Iraq for this,” I thought to
myself, “Or did I?”
As you know, I just returned from Iraq in November. Susan and I are so grateful for all you did for us while I was gone. My deployment was to FOB Shield in Baghdad, about a mile from Sadr City. As an Air Force lawyer, I was assigned to a Task Force to establish an independent Iraqi justice system or at least that’s what the Air Force said. I say this because while I did do that, the Lord had a whole other wavelength going for me in the desert, one that had nothing to do with my job. The only issue is whether I’d embrace His agenda or mine.
This was one of many strong God lessons from Iraq. Each day
we have our own idea of what we will
do.
Some of these may even be our own idea
of what we think we’ll do for God. Thing is, though, as a Christian, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in
me” (Galatians 2:20). So, there is no question about
who’s living today: It’s not you; it’s Jesus. You
are in His story; He is not in yours. On this, I share with you this quote from
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together:
“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will
be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people
with claims and petitions. We may pass them by, preoccupied with our more
important tasks, as the priest passed by the man who had fallen among thieves,
perhaps reading the Bible…it is part of the discipline of humility that
we must not spare our hand where it can perform a service and we do not assume
that our schedule is our own to manage, but allow it to be arranged by
God.”
What happened? I volunteered to lead the every other
week Saturday night service, and it was an extreme blessing. Not only was
I able to minister to military members, but a large contingent of contractors
from Uganda, Sri Lanka, India, and South Africa also attended the chapel.
Worshipping with them in a Muslim war-zone had the feel of an underground
Chinese house church. I was encouraged by the simple faith of our brethren
around the world and now that I’m home realize I could have easily missed
it. As the New Year starts, I have one question for you: This year are
you ready to be interrupted by God?
Jeff Palomino
January 18, 2009 in Evangelism, Gateways to LIFE, Knowing God, Military Ministry, Missions | Permalink | Comments (1)