January 30, 2015 · 8:02 pm

Full

I couldn’t believe it!

I filled my wife’s Prius the other night for $14.95.

Gas prices are at a new low.

Even for a Prius!

Consumers rejoice. Producers moan.

My friends in Texas tell me it’s a market glut – the old law of supply and demand. An abundance of oil brings the price down. Soon America will be a leading petroleum producer. We will wean ourselves from dependence on the Middle East.

Given the instability there, most folks think this new energy independence is a good thing.

Still, the American oil and gas industry is a huge employer and there are plenty of concerns about the impact this new relief at the pump will have on the economy.

The low price won’t last. Maybe it can’t. Perhaps it shouldn’t.

Regardless of the economics, the gas in that car will be consumed. It will be gone. We’ll need a refill.

There’s hardly a limitless supply of anything.

You’re probably out of something right now. Or you’re in low supply.

We live in a world of limits.

Our time, our abilities and our energies are all limited.

The globe warms as its resources are consumed.

You and I face restrictions and limits every day. There are limits on size or amount. Only one bag is free at the airport and you pay for the second one, depending on how much it weighs.

Size limits, age limits, weight limits, number limits and speed limits.

We live with limits and nothing lasts.

Even our time on earth is limited.

Yes, you and I are bounded on all sides by life on this planet. We can only run so fast and jump so high. We have invented and we have soared yet even then, we have explored only an infinitesimal fraction of our own universe.

We are circumscribed creatures, you and me.

But here’s some great news: there’s one thing you and I need more than anything else in our lives – and it is unlimited.

It’s the love of God.

Our patience, our forgiveness, our understanding, even our own love – are all limited. We wish they weren’t but after all, we’re only human.

There is no limit to the love of God.

Paul gets excited about this incredible reality – this amazing abundance – this vast expanse of divine expression. The heart of God is big, Paul tells the Ephesian Christians – very big.

Writing of this to them, Paul says:

“That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man” (Ephesians 3: 16, KJV).

Out of God’s “glorious unlimited resources” (NLT), Paul wishes for the Ephesians to be strengthened and rooted in their new faith. He wants those roots of faith to grow deep “into God’s love” (3:17, NLT). And he wants them to try and understand – to grasp, if they can – “the breadth, and length, and depth, and height” of the love of God (3:18, KJV).

Consider the unfathomable dimensions of his love.

God’s love for you is broader than the scope of your sins. It is longer than your time on this earth. It goes beyond time. It is eternal. His love for you reaches deeper than your deepest despair and soars to Heaven itself, where Jesus Christ pleads on your behalf as your advocate with the Father.

How many individual grains of sand are on all the shores and beaches of the earth? Abraham didn’t know. He couldn’t tell God when the Almighty promised to multiply Abraham’s seed accordingly.

So is the love of God for us.

His love for you and me is unbreachable, unchangeable, unquenchable and unstoppable. Paul told the Romans that nothing at all – nothing in all of creation and nothing above, below or beyond it – could ever separate you and me from God’s love.

When a young German immigrant named Frederick Martin Lehman sat on some lemon crates in Pasadena California in 1917 he began writing a song about God’s love, inspired by a sermon he had heard a week earlier.

He had the chorus down:

“Oh, love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong! It shall forevermore endure— The saints’ and angels’ song.”

He later found the words for the third stanza written on a card buried in his files at home. The words had been copied from the cell wall of an insane asylum years earlier. One of the workers wrote them down before he painted the cell after the inmate died.

It was later discovered that those words were actually remembered by the inmate from a Hebrew poem, written in Aramaic, and later translated and carefully preserved. The poem was written by a rabbi named Meir Ben Isaac Nehoria.

He wrote it in 1050 AD.

“Could we with ink the ocean fill, And were the skies of parchment made, Were every stalk on earth a quill, And every man a scribe by trade; To write the love of God above Would drain the ocean dry; Nor could the scroll contain the whole, Though stretched from sky to sky.”

 You may run out of many things this year.

God’s love for you will always read “full”.

May God bless you and your family.

 

 

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January 23, 2015 · 2:35 am

When Giants Strode the Earth

He stood high on the admiral’s bridge.

The great, gray warship floated in Placentia Bay, as the sun began to slowly rise over the coast of Newfoundland.

The rumpled stout man with thinning and unkempt sandy hair peered intently across the Atlantic. He had just gotten up but he couldn’t wait – not even to comb his hair.

Eager anticipation crossed the countenance of his determined features.

He had carefully labored and hoped for this moment – this meeting.

“Can you see any sign of them yet?” he asked an aide.

When the U.S.S. Augusta approached the HMS Prince of Wales at 11:00 AM, he had already dressed into a dark blue military uniform. He crossed the bay and boarded the ship.

There, on Saturday morning, August 9, 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill met President Franklin D. Roosevelt for the first time. Roosevelt, supported on the arm of his son Elliott, smiled broadly and shook Churchill’s hand. Though always a painful risk, especially on board a ship, the president had insisted on standing in his braces for this historic occasion.

It was a warm greeting FDR extended to his British counterpart. They had been in communication by cable. The meeting had been kept from the American press and public – a secret rendezvous on the high seas that would help determine the course of the world.

FDR jauntily lifted his head and smiled again at Churchill. “At last – we’ve gotten together,” he said. Churchill nodded and smiled back.

“We have,” he replied.

They hit it off instantly.

England was standing alone against Hitler’s Germany in World War II. Churchill hoped to persuade FDR, who faced staunch isolationism at home, to help Great Britain.

The stakes had never been higher for civilization. Both men knew that.

The next day, Sunday, on board the Prince of Wales, the President and Prime Minister joined American and British sailors in a church service.

Churchill had carefully selected the hymns.

They were rich and glorious Anglo-Saxon declarations of faith and courage. They are not so frequently sung in churches today.

The first was O God, Our Help in Ages Past, based on the 90th Psalm.

The second was Onward Christian Soldiers.

 The service concluded with the singing of a hymn that FDR and Churchill, lovers of the sea and the Navy, would have found moving: Eternal Father, Strong to Save, known traditionally as “the Navy Hymn.”

Churchill wept and pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket. “It was,” he later said, “a great hour to live.”

Prayers were offered. The scripture passage was from Joshua 1. The words rang clear and strong:

“…as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage …be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest” (Joshua 1:5, 9, KJV).

Military and political strategies aside, that single worship service on the deck of the Prince of Wales, moved FDR deeply.

Later he confided to his son Elliott:

“If nothing else happened while we were here, that would have cemented us. ‘Onward Christian Soldiers.’ We are Christian soldiers, and we will go on, with God’s help.”

And they did.

Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill forged a close friendship of rare candor, warmth and mutual admiration.

It was the friendship that won the war and saved the world.

Yes, it was a “great hour to live.” And a time of maximum peril and challenge for the whole world. There was nothing quite like it before. There has been no time like it since.

And as great as the danger was, great leaders rose to meet it.

In a poignant scene from the film Lincoln, the president asks a young soldier:

“Do you think we choose to be born? Or are we fitted to the times we are born into?”

While interesting, it’s not likely Lincoln ever said that. He did confess that events had controlled him, rather than he controlled events. He quoted Shakespeare’s Hamlet about the “divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will.”

History reveals the hand of a sovereign God.

Great events and great lives remind us that this is indeed His Story.

No one who believes in God would dismiss the close collaboration of FDR and Churchill in the world’s greatest war as mere coincidence.

It was divine providence. It was God saving his world.

This year, interestingly, will serve as reminders of God’s sovereign control of events. January 24th marks the 50th anniversary of Sir Winston Churchill’s death. This April marks the 70th anniversary of FDR’s passing. That month is also the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination and the end of the Civil War. In August, we commemorate the 70th anniversary of victory in World War II.

History, like a kind father, reminds us of the power, purpose and watchfulness of God and points us to a renewed faith in his judgment and care for us.

He rules the nations.

But let us remember too that the Lord of Hosts is also the God of Jacob. He cares about the individual no less than the universe.

“Remember the days of old,” sang Moses, “consider the years of many generations …” (Deuteronomy 32:7, KJV).

And thank God for the day when giants strode the earth.

May God bless you and your family.

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January 16, 2015 · 2:25 am

The Truth about Islam

It again struck.

Unreasoning, brutal and deadly, its calling card read “revenge for the honor” of the prophet Muhammad.

This time it was the Paris headquarters of a satirical newspaper that had dared to poke fun at the Prophet. Twelve people, including the editorial director, were killed. Three of the terrorists were later cornered and gunned down. But not before four other innocent victims lay dead on the floor of a kosher market.

France was stunned. Nothing like this had happened in a half century.

The civilized world recoiled and then united in defiant solidarity against terrorism. Millions marched in Paris and throughout the country. The mayor of the city made clear her determination to fight back. President Francois Hollande joined the leaders of Germany, Great Britain, Israel and representatives from more than 40 other nations, arm in arm, for the show of resolve.

And once again, pains were taken to explain that this was a united resistance only to “radical” Islam, not Islam itself.

With each attack, with each mindless invocation of Muhammad and each bloody cry for “Allah”, even the most reasonable are beginning to question this persistent premise.

Is it true?

Is the religion of Islam, the world’s second-largest with 1.57 billion followers, totally blameless in the rising tide of global butchery committed in the name of its god and his messenger?

Is it possible that the guilt-ridden and dangerous dogmas of political correctness and multiculturalism have blinded us to the stubborn facts – the unvarnished truth – about Islam? Have we, in the name of a false peace and uneasy co-existence, turned a blind eye to the troubling reality of this oftentimes fervent, harsh and unforgiving religion?

By embracing acceptance do we practice cowardice?

“Tolerance,” observed GK Chesterton, “is the virtue of a man without convictions.”

Ideas have consequences. And some of the ideas – and history – of Islam lend themselves to a stridency of belief and an extremism of behavior.

It is ideas that unite terrorists around the globe who repeatedly shriek that they are acting in the name of “Allah.” And when we see this religious violence committed in the name of a single religion – over and over again – we have every right – and the duty – to be aware, informed and suspicious.

And we have the moral obligation to condemn any religion that breeds this violence; whether it is deliberate or unwitting. The danger is no different.

If our political leaders had any spine they would stand up.

These attacks, such as the one in Paris, may appear to be isolated but they are in fact united. What unites them is a sworn hatred of Western civilization and of Christianity in particular.

Muhammad is diametrically opposed to Jesus Christ. They cannot both be God’s sole messenger.

In Pakistan last November, a young Christian couple, living in poverty, was beaten to death with hockey sticks, rods and crowbars by an angry Muslim crowd of more than a thousand. The couple had been accused of burning a Koran while disposing of trash.

Muslim clerics used loudspeakers to incite the crowd while the couple was held captive. After being clubbed to death, their bodies were burned in the kiln where they had labored their whole lives. They left three small children. She was pregnant.

Where then was the outrage of Islam at such an act? Where indeed has it been throughout the Middle East in the face of savage persecution of Christians?

Even the new president of Egypt warned imams that they must rise up and condemn this terror committed in the name of Islam or their religion will disintegrate in a cauldron of vengeance.

When Abraham, doubting God’s promise, listened to his wife and was intimate with her slave Hagar, the son they had, Ishmael, was destined for violence. “‘This son of yours will be a wild man,’” the angel told the pregnant Hagar, “‘as untamed as a wild donkey! He will raise his fist against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live in open hostility against all his relatives’” (Genesis 16:12, NLT).

Ishmael is the father of the Arab race – the progenitor of Islam. Hate and violence are his legacy.

“I have been ordered (by Allah),” declared Muhammad, “ to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah’s Apostle”

Blasphemy against Islam is a criminal act in many nations, punishable by death. Responsible Muslims must call for the abolition of these repressive laws.

There are many peace-loving Muslims and we must never hate anyone. The right to worship must be protected in this country – for everyone.

This must be the Christian response.

We must continue to evangelize Muslims – to lead them to the love of Jesus Christ and the freedom, grace and forgiveness that only he offers. This is both right and effective. Haggai Institute, the great ministry for which I work, has trained thousands of ex-Muslims in leadership for evangelism. At their grave peril, they spread the Good News to their friends, family and colleagues.

Many Muslims around the world have told of seeing the Savior in dreams and visions.

Yes, he loves and he comes. Yes, he comes to them too.

Let us pray that the scourge of religiously-inspired violence will end.

Let us love all people everywhere, as He wants us to.

And let us recognize the destructive danger of falsehood, the glorious power of truth and the triumphant reality that Jesus Saves!

May God bless you and your family.

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January 9, 2015 · 2:14 am

Highly Effective

It’s Habit Number Two.

It’s what we all should do if we want to be happy and successful.

“Begin with the end in mind.”

That’s what Stephen Covey told us in his best-selling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

“The most effective way I know to begin with the end in mind,” Covey wrote, “is to develop a personal mission statement or philosophy or creed.” Covey said that this “mission statement” should be based “on what you want to be (character) and to do (contributions and achievements) and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based.”

That sounds like good advice to me.

It’s practical, wise and grounded.

It makes perfect sense and is undoubtedly “highly effective.”

I wish I had read Covey’s excellent book before I began assembling toys on Christmas Eve. No matter how carefully I laid all the parts out on the floor of our living room; no matter how closely I studied the diagrams and read the instructions – several times – I still ended up with a leftover washer or screw.

They went somewhere, I just didn’t know where. I had made a mistake but didn’t know what it was, how I had made it or how to correct it. Still, if the toy functioned I didn’t worry. Not once did one of our girls ever ask me, “Daddy, where’s the missing washer?”

It wasn’t perfect but it was close and certainly good enough coming from a mechanical klutz like me.

My daughter was happy – she never knew the difference.

I tried to begin with the end in mind but still couldn’t get it all together.

My life seems to have been taken up with its share of unanticipated consequences.

It takes a lifetime to learn how to live and it’s only hindsight that offers the wisdom of clarity.

My dad used to tell me that “if our foresight was as good as our hindsight we’d be a sure sight better off.”

Some are good at predicting the future and making choices based on their intuition and perceptions. It seems always to turn out as they thought it would.

For the rest of us, life holds surprises. It is cooked in crisis, marinated with choices and threaded throughout with irony. But no matter how unexpectedly it turns out, life still tastes pretty good.

Of course, there’s no crystal ball for 2015.

All of us are going to be surprised by something. The future isn’t like a checkbook – it can’t be calculated, managed and neatly balanced each month. The beginning of the year reminds us that the future is enveloped in mystery – coincidence, happenstance, serendipity.

And it is determined and guided by Providence.

“Our God, our help in ages past,” wrote Isaac Watts nearly three centuries ago, “our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home.”

The ancient immortal lyrics burst forth upon our human frailty with a majestic and resounding reassurance that has resonated with every generation of Christian pilgrims.

The unchangeableness of God is contrasted with the transitoriness of man. Our mortality is laid out next to his sovereignty.

“Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away; they fly, forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day.”

To God, time is an unobtrusive irrelevancy. He lives and moves in what theologian Paul Tillich described as “the eternal now.”

Watts was inspired by the 90th psalm.

“Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.  Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God” (Psalm 90: 1-2,NKJV).

God is the premier Highly Effective Person.

He begins with the end in mind.

He always has.

God planned the whole of the future – yours, mine, the world’s – in the very distant past. And in God’s plan, there is no left-over screw and no wayward washer. His assembly of human existence – past, present and future – is perfect and complete, right down to the last detail.

It lacks nothing because its Creator lacks nothing. God never goes back to the drawing board of history. He scraps nothing and he has no “Plan B.”

He doesn’t need one.

As God begins with the end in mind, so too he begins with us in mind.

Paul told the Philippians that they could confidently rejoice in knowing this:

“God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns” (Philippians 1:6, NLT, emphasis added).

What a promise as we begin a New Year of living. To know God is working in us, for us and through us.

He will never abandon what he started – he has the end in mind.

Long before you were born, God had you in his mind – and in his heart.

“Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are your thoughts about me, O God” (Psalm 139:16, NLT).

This alone gives us confidence and hope as we once again venture into the unknowns of time and circumstance.

God always begins with the end in mind. He’s highly effective.

May God bless you and your family.

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December 31, 2014 · 10:00 am

Colonel Davenport and the End of the World

People peered out the windows in astonishment.

Everything seemed enveloped in pitch blackness.

No one had ever witnessed such a thing before.

It was twelve noon, May 19, 1780.

This was some sort of natural phenomenon – an abnormal darkness had descended upon all of the New England and parts of Canada. Historians believe it was due to a rare combination of smoke from forest fires and a thick fog.

The darkness that day was so great that candles were required from noon until midnight. Witnesses said that in some places it was so dark that persons could not read common print at midday in the open air.

The birds went silent and disappeared. An ominous hush fell over the land.

One observer wrote later:

“If every luminous body in the universe had been shrouded in impenetrable shades, or struck out of existence, the darkness could not have been more complete.”

The fledgling thirteen colonies of America were in the fifth year of their monumental struggle for independence.

In Hartford, Connecticut the legislature was in session. Anxious word spread that it was the Day of Judgment and there were many fearful calls for adjournment.

But then Colonel Abraham Davenport rose to speak. Slowly and deliberately he stood up. The chamber fell to a respectful silence.

“Gentlemen,” Davenport said, “I am against an adjournment. The Day of Judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for an adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought.”

And so they were. The Connecticut legislature finished its work. The American colonies, against all odds, won their freedom from Great Britain.

It was not the Day of Judgment. The world did not come to an end.

The darkness dispersed and at midnight the stars could be seen.

New England’s Dark Day was over.

Today, millions of Americans hold their collective breath as together we prepare to step across the threshold of a New Year. Hope is in the air; it’s in our hearts and minds; it stirs our souls.

This is a time when we want to be expectant. We want to embrace a brighter future.

We may look back upon this past year – with all its violence and war; its heartache and strife – and wonder what in the world is happening and what will the New Year bring.

It has been said that the optimist believes we live in the best of all possible worlds – and the pessimist fears that this is true.

I sometimes wonder if we Christians are too apocalyptic for our own good.

We’re just too down in the mouth about the future. We wallow in fear and catastrophe as if there were no God. Or as if he were an incompetent politician making it up as he goes along instead of reigning as the omnipotent Ruler of the universe.

This is very far from being the best of all possible worlds, that’s true, but God did make this world. He controls it, he has a plan for it and his purpose will never be thwarted – by anyone or anything.

And beyond this truth, stands another – grander far than mere mortal imagination can see.

The new heaven and the new earth God will create will be “the best of all possible worlds.”

That’s the future for all those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ.

The end of this world will only be the beginning of a world without end.

If God’s so gloriously optimistic about our future, why shouldn’t you and I be perennially hopeful and exulting in joy about what he has planned for those who know him?

You and I have a choice.

We can curse this present darkness. Or we can choose to light a candle.

We can fear the future or we can embrace it. We can be a light or we can hide under a bushel. We can throw up our hands or we can make a difference.

Paul told the Ephesians that since they had the light of Christ within them by faith, they should “live as people of light!” (Ephesians 5: 8, NLT).

He told the Philippians that rather than complaining or arguing they should “live clean and innocent lives as children of God” (Philippians 2: 14-15, NLT).

They were to be, he wrote, like bright stars shining “in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation” – a world of spiritual and moral darkness (Philippians 2: 15, KJV).

You and I must be bright lights of hope and joy and love and decency – shining before our friends and neighbors; our colleagues and co-workers; our husbands, our wives and our children.

Let us resolve to do this in 2015.

This world may be nearing its end or it may not. Only God knows that. Only God knows the end from the beginning. If it is not the end of the world, there is no cause for alarm or concern. And if it is, then let us choose to be found doing our duty when Christ comes.

The world hasn’t ended – not yet.

Let candles be brought. Let them be lighted. And let them shine.

May God bless you and your family.

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December 25, 2014 · 3:20 am

What About You? The Cosmic Christ: Part IV

The gentle breeze bent the flickering fire only slightly.

The stars were bright against the clear black sky.

It was one of those pleasant evenings that seems so perfect it offers its own peaceful exhilaration.

Having eaten, the men now sat around the fire in low conversation. They spoke of what they had seen and heard – reflections on their recent travels.

They were happy and excited. They had never experienced anything even close to this.

The response of the growing crowds, the teachings, the miracles – four thousand men, not counting women and children, all fed with only seven loaves and a few fish. And there were seven full baskets left over!

What had taken place in Decapolis, near the Sea of Galilee, was incredible. Hundreds of eager people seeking to be healed came to him: the blind, the dumb, and the crippled. Others brought loved ones.

It seemed to the men a sea of suffering humanity crying out to be lifted up.

He healed them all.

He had not sought fanfare and tried to contain it but the more he told them not to tell, the more they did.

And of course, there were the adversaries too. The Pharisees badgered and challenged and lectured and fumed. They laid verbal and theological traps.

He sprung every one. The legalists never even came close to cornering him.

For the twelve, it had been one heavy head trip.

They stood amazed in his presence.

They didn’t expect it, couldn’t explain it and wouldn’t have believed it – had they not seen it with their own eyes. One of them would later write:

“We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life” (I John 1:1, NLT).

That was the impact of the experience; the affirmation of one who had been there; of one who had been with him.

And so tonight, it came.

It was the moment he had been leading them to. Everything he had said, everything he had done, had helped to prepare his close circle for tonight – this time and place of decision.

On a hillside in Caesarea Philippi.

He knew that eleven of these men would have a rendezvous with his destiny that would transform and shape the rest of their lives.

They would never be the same. The world would never be the same.

He had returned from a time of prayer alone. And while they talked among themselves, he had remained pensive. Now suddenly he broke into their private conversations for a group discussion.

Jesus looked at them intently, one by one.

“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16: 13, NASB).

They were silent. They looked at each other.

Andrew spoke first.

“Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah.”

Thaddeus added: “But still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” (Matthew 16: 14, NASB).

Jesus nodded his understanding and smiled. He knew there would always be conflicting opinions.

Then he looked at them and asked:

“But what about you? Who do you say that I am?” (verse 15, NIV).

Again there was silence.

Several of the men looked down, as if searching for the right words in a heart put on the spot.

Then Peter spoke – only for himself with such assurance. But it turned out he was also the spokesman for those who would soon join him in turning the world upside down.

He spoke with slow deliberation, as if startled by his own declaration.

“Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16: 16, KJV).

Jesus asked the central question of Christmas. Peter gave the only answer possible for the follower of Jesus.

To succeeding generations – including many of our sons and daughters and our grandchildren who are skeptical of the deistic and exclusionary claims of historic Christianity in an age of tolerance and pluralism – let us press those claims without apology or compromise.

He is the Christ – and the only Christ.

He is the Son – and the only Son – of the living God.

Jesus is the Word of life, John wrote, the one who is from the beginning.

Jesus is the Savior of the world – and the only Savior.

Ask the prophets who foretold his birth.

Ask the angels who announced it – to Joseph, to Mary and to certain poor shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night.

Ask Simeon who held and blessed him in the temple.

Ask Zechariah whose loosened tongue heralded the coming Messiah.

Ask the wise men who bowed down and worshipped him as their king, though he was but a child.

Ask Handel, Watts and Wesley who wrote the immortal songs that triumphed his coming.

From beginning to end, the Bible’s theme is Jesus Christ.

His birth in Bethlehem is the uniquely orchestrated, impressively detailed, compellingly accurate, beautifully expressed and amazingly fulfilled prophecy of the Old Testament.

The true meaning of Christmas is the thoroughly persuasive validation of the truth of the Bible and the truth about Jesus Christ.

He is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

What about you? Who do you say that he is?

Who do you dare to tell?

May God bless you and Your family.

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December 19, 2014 · 1:20 am

Plowshares and Pruning Hooks: The Cosmic Christ: Part III

It seems to mock the harsh reality of the world as we know it.

As we’ve always known it, from the very beginning.

In this season of hope, we’ll hear and see the words again and again – this joyously triumphant declaration sent from heaven itself.

First spoken by angels to frightened shepherds in the middle of a night suddenly ablaze with the glory of God, they reach the deepest yearnings of man’s highest aspiration.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

Peace on earth?

Were the angels being intentionally ironic?

Were their words a wish, a hope or a prophecy?

In the midst of the Civil War, Longfellow wrote in his Christmas hymn, “And in despair I bowed my head. ‘ There is no peace on earth,’ I said. ‘For hate is strong, and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men.’”

For Americans, 2014 has been an almost daily reminder of the strength of hate and the turbulence of war. Strife has been written in the headlines and announced at the top of the hour so often it has numbed us to the horror of its carnage.

Violence has become a grim expectancy.

Time and again throughout history the song has been mocked.

Woodrow Wilson’s “War to End All Wars” and his League of Nations were supposed to bring peace on earth. A generation later, the United Nations was intended to do the same.

The twentieth century was the bloodiest in history. The twenty-first has been gruesomely persistent. Wars engulf much of the world. In Iraq and Afghanistan, in Syria and Somalia; in Nigeria and in Pakistan, men are fueled by a mindless hostility that is snuffing out the lives of thousands every year.

Peace has been the elusive dream of humankind – and the tragic illusion of idealistic dreamers.

This is not to say we should not pursue peace, work for it and pray for it. Christians of all people should want to see peace on earth and goodwill toward men.

But Christmas reminds us that we must put peace in a much larger context.

When the choir of heaven’s angels heralded their vision it was to celebrate the Savior’s birth: “a Savior which is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2: 11, KJV).

Peace apart from Jesus is impossible.

The announcement was delivered to those with whom God “is well-pleased.” Peace can come only to men and women “of good will, of His favor” (The Amplified Bible).

For all man’s good intentions and earnest endeavors, peace on this earth will always prove to be a fragile and transient thing.

The angels added the promise because the arrival of Jesus Christ was the confirmation that someday peace would come to earth and when it did it would be lasting because he would bring it.

The Jews call it Shalom.

This is much more than the absence of conflict. It includes the security and wellness of the whole community. Isaiah names the coming Messiah “The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6, KJV). The Message aptly describes him as “The Prince of Wholeness.” True peace, in the biblical sense, includes that meaning.

Only this Prince can bring that kind of peace.

For the follower of Jesus, peace need not be limited to a future millennium.

“Peace I leave with you,” Jesus promised his disciples on the night he was betrayed, “my peace I give unto you” (John 14:27, KJV). This would not be like the peace sought, negotiated or simulated by this disturbed world. It would go deeper, rise higher and stay longer than the world’s illusions.

When the great British statesman William Gladstone was asked how he maintained serenity in the midst of global turmoil, he said that a verse placed at the foot of his bed reminded him, every morning and every night, of the true source of peace:

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee” (Isaiah 26:3, KJV).

It was the prophet Isaiah who foretold of the day when The Prince of Peace would judge among the nations of the earth. He saw a day when “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4, KJV).

Instead, the peoples of the world would “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks” (verse 4, KJV).

The weapons of war will be melded into the instruments of peaceful renewal. Cultivation and harvest will replace destruction and violence. The celebration of life will replace the specter of death. The joy of a new day shall forever still the mournful cries of “Rachel weeping for her children” lost in battle.

And “of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end” (Isaiah 9:7, KJV).

Men will study war no more.

This is not some idealistic fantasy dependent on fallen man’s fond hopes, fruitless follies and broken treaties.

This is the eternal promise of God himself.

To know Christ is to know peace.

Not only peace in our hearts and minds but someday peace on earth and goodwill toward men.

May God bless you and your family.

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December 12, 2014 · 2:36 am

The Truth of Everything: The Cosmic Christ: Part II

We should all see it.

Few accounts of a life are more remarkable than this man’s incredible journey from heartbreaking disability to globally recognized brilliance.

The movie The Theory of Everything is one of those rare films of emotion and substance that you know you’ll be glad you saw before you enter the theater.

It tells the inspiring story of renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, his intellectual giftedness and his battle to overcome a rare motor neuron disease that ultimately robs him of mobility and speech.

His amazing genius as a cosmologist has earned Hawking an imperishable place in the history of science. The film depicts how much he suffered and his struggle to persevere against grim prognosis. In the end, it shows us the strength and possibilities of love and hope.

Impressed with Hawking’s courage and achievements, we may be disappointed in his theories.

It’s ironic that such a story of personal faith – and of hope – would lead to scientific conclusions that omit God and the glory of his transcendence.

Conclusions that seem, in the end, so hopeless.

In his book, The Grand Design, Hawking argues that our universe “can and will create itself from nothing.”

“Can and will” are dogmatic words – especially when exploring the mysteries of the universe and its origin.

Mr. Hawking has moved from the doubt of agnosticism (earlier writing, for example A Brief History of Time, left open the possibility of divine design) to the certitude of atheism.

Hawking asserts that “Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing…It is not necessary to invoke God to…set the universe going.”

This is The Theory of Everything.

 In its truest sense it’s also the theory of nothing.

Perhaps the Christmas season is a good time to release this film about Stephen Hawking. After all, this is the greatest annual celebration of spiritual faith – and of love and hope – that the world knows.

Christmas rejects the meaningless idea of nothingness. It embraces the true Grand Design.

Christmas rejects “spontaneous creation” and instead joyfully marvels at and worships the Creator who planned and designed it all; who “set the universe going.”

Christmas presents a gloriously hopeful narrative of cosmic existence as the alternative to the drab and ultimately untenable explanation of science without faith, and therefore without meaning.

Creation from nothing means nothing. It is without hope.

Creation by a Creator means everything. It is the source of hope.

Science accounts for so much of the progress of the human race. For this we honor it and give thanks for its discoveries. It is only when science demands that we exclude God that we must renounce its arrogant tyranny over the mind and spirit of man.

Christmas points us not only to a Savior. Christmas invites us to bow before our Creator and celebrate The Truth of Everything.

No one declares so clearly and powerfully – so incontrovertibly – the supremacy of Jesus Christ in creation than does the apostle Paul in the first chapter of his letter to the Colossians.

It is truly beautiful. It lifts our souls in ways that mere science cannot do.

He is “the image of the invisible God”, Paul writes (Colossians 1: 15, KJV).

Paul insists that Jesus “is the exact likeness of the unseen God” (The Amplified Bible).

Don’t ask to see God, Jesus told Philip. “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father!” (John 14:9, NLT).

Could Jesus have made his deity any more plain?

Paul writes with encompasssing majesty:

“For by him [Christ] were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” (Colossians 1: 16-17, KJV, emphasis added).

Jesus created everything.

Jesus is before everything.

Jesus holds everything together.

Not only, says Paul, is Jesus the head of the church but he “is the beginning …that in all things he might have the preeminence” (Colossians 1: 18, KJV).

Why?

Because God the Father was “pleased” that in his Son “should all fullness dwell” (verse 19, KJV).

He was, renders The Message, “supreme in the beginning …and he is supreme in the end … towering far above everything, everyone …Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe – people and things, animals and atoms – get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies” (verse 17-20, The Message).

With Jesus Christ, as theologian R.C. Sproul points out, “there are no random atoms.”

This is Christianity’s answer to science on the origin of the universe.

How smothered with glitter Christmas has become – and how weak, helpless and distant the world has made the Christ child at Christmas time. Oh that Christians would contemplate the triumphant Cosmic Christ – King of all kings, Lord of all lords!

“O, come let us adore Him!”

Our Creator God.

This is the miraculous Truth that science can neither explain nor defy.

Science postulates theories. The Bible proclaims Truth.

Jesus is no theory. He is our eternal reference point.

Jesus Christ is The Truth of Everything.

May God bless you and your family.

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December 5, 2014 · 12:50 am

Inextinguishable

He looked at the pitiful man who sat before him.

The man was blind.

Shut off from the world by total darkness. This was his life; the only one he’d ever known.

His blindness had meant a meager and humiliating existence. He was poor. He begged. He survived only by the benevolence of others.

But today everything for him would change.

The disciples were curious.

“Rabbi,” they asked, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?” (John 9:2, NLT).

There had to be an explanation for everything. Misfortune was explained as the result of someone’s sin.

Jesus continued to stare at the man. Then he spoke with a gentle determination:

“’It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins, ‘Jesus answered. ‘ This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.’” (John 9:3, NLT).

Ah, so then there is a redemptive purpose in human suffering. There was at least a reason for this man’s suffering- and it had nothing to do with anyone’s sin except Adam and Eve’s.

The reason for this man’s blindness – and on this day his appointment with destiny – was so “that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (verse 3, KJV).

The power of God for the glory of God was about to be shown – in a poor blind beggar! Jesus – God’s Son and God in human form – would do this.

“I must work the works of him that sent me,” Jesus says (verse 4, KJV). Then, as he stoops to the ground and looks at the sightless eyes of this blind man, Jesus says:

“As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (verse 5, KJV).

It is an amazing declaration; an extraordinary claim. It’s powerful here in all its ironic relevance.

No prophet, no statesman, no king, no religious leader has ever said this of himself.

In the previous chapter of John’s gospel, as Jesus has just forgiven the adulteress and told her to “sin no more”, he says to the crowd:

“I am the light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12, NKJV).

Jesus does not say he gives the light of the world. He does not say he has the light of the world.

Jesus declares categorically that he IS the light of the world.

Jesus made many claims about himself that are unprecedented, incomparable and superlative. It is impossible to rationally consider them and deny his deity.

Jesus’ claims may be described as a perfectly justified and authenticated divine audacity.

He’s triumphant, transcendent and omnipotent.

He is the cosmic Christ.

His coming is foretold in scripture with a bold eloquence.

Seven hundred years before his birth, the prophet Isaiah wrote that the time would come when Galilee would be radiant with God’s glory:

“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them the light shined” (Isaiah 9:2, KJV).

Zechariah said that his new-born son would prepare the way for the One who would “give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins” and “through the tender mercy of our God” would “give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 2: 77-79, KJV).

John the Baptist “was not that Light, but was come to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:8-9, KJV).

This is Jesus: Redeemer, Savior, Messiah and the true Light of the world.

“In him,” writes John the apostle, “was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4, KJV).

We face increasing cultural pressure to accept the false notion that all religions – and all gods – stand on equal ground. To embrace this political correctness is to deny the supremacy of Jesus Christ. To adopt this view in the name of a misplaced tolerance is to deny our faith, the Bible and the truth of God himself.

For the believer, this must never be.

To walk down this road of accommodation is to place popular convention above historic Christianity.

Jesus Christ is not just another god. He – and he alone – is God among the gods.

Jesus spit on the dirt. He made clay. He put the mud on the blind man’s eyes and told him to wash them.

The blind beggar obeyed. And seeing the glistening waters of the pool of Siloam for the first time, the man was transformed.

Just like you and me, he was changed forever.

He who had sat in the darkness and the dust his whole life had suddenly seen a great light. Upon him, the light of the world shined.

“Once I was blind,” he shouted with joy, “and now I can see!”

He believed in Jesus and became his follower.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it” (John 1:5, NLT).

This Christmas let us celebrate the Cosmic Christ.

May God bless you and your family.

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November 26, 2014 · 9:44 pm

The Basket

It was the harvest festival.

This was a special celebration in India. Everyone offered something as an expression of thanks.

The local pastor watched the people entering the church. Most brought food.

Then he noticed her.

The old woman was thin, brown and wrinkled; so frail it seemed a puff of wind might knock her over. She slowly made her way to the front of the church. She carried a large basket of rice. The minister went down to greet her and took the basket from her weathered arms.

She smiled and thanked him.

She was very poor. This he knew. But he also knew she was faithful and devout. Though she had little, she loved God with all she had.

“Oh, dear sister,” the pastor marveled, “this is a very large offering!” The old lady nodded. He asked her if this was an offering for some unusual blessing.

“Yes,” the old woman replied. “My son was very sick and I promised God a large gift if he got well.”

“And your son has recovered?” the minister asked.

The woman paused and he caught a sudden glistening in her eyes.

“No,” she said softly. “He died last week. But I know that he is in God’s care. For that I am especially thankful.”

How much easier it would be if our gratitude could be premised on the circumstances of our lives. God does not leave that option to us. He does not want our thankfulness to be conditional. He wants it to be unequivocal.

God wants our gratitude to be transcendent.

He is clear and direct on this point. We are given no out, no excuse, no exemption and no qualifier.

“In everything give thanks,” Paul tells the Thessalonians (I Thessalonians 5:18, KJV).

In everything?

 “… no matter what the circumstances may be” (The Amplified Bible).

“Thank God no matter what happens” (The Message).

God does not recognize a circumstantial gratitude.

And just in case we may be tempted to think this is only Paul’s view of life, the apostle immediately clears that up in the same verse:

“In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (KJV, emphasis added).

It’s a powerful emphasis Paul adds.

This is God’s will for you and me. This is how God wants us to live. This is how he wants us to think. It’s how he wants us to respond.

And if we are “in Christ Jesus,” Paul says, we will want this too.

God wants thankfulness to be our way of living. Gratitude must be a mindset with the Christian; a positive way of viewing the world and our place in it.

Thankfulness is the Christ-centered philosophy of life.

Everyone goes through life feeling entitled or indebted. And one of those two attitudes permeates every area of our lives – our reaction to every situation and our response and relationship to every person.

These attitudes affect our religion and how we see God and expect him to see us. The health and wealth claims of the Prosperity Gospel, which has a large following, are, at their root, an attitude of entitlement: “where’s mine and why is it taking so long to get here?”

The attitude of indebtedness, by contrast, is best summed up in the simple prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, be merciful to me a sinner.”

It’s the difference between gratification and gratitude.

In the mid-term elections, polls showed Americans angry, bitter, and dissatisfied. Nearly two-thirds said our country is on “the wrong track” and close to half said things will be worse for their children.

Three weeks later, we were told by the media that “an improving economy, more disposable income, consumer optimism and low gas prices are combining to create the biggest Thanksgiving travel rush in years.”

So tomorrow, what will it be?

Will there be a complaining and entitled spirit around our table or a spirit of indebtedness to God and genuine thanks? Will we be despondent with disappointments or shall we joyfully count our many blessings?

It’s interesting that in this passage Paul associates thankfulness with joy, prayer, patience, and encouraging others – none of which are possible without gratitude.

It’s not always easy.

I have a friend who’s had a rough year. He hopes and prays that he and his family are on the other side of it. I have a colleague who just discovered that the latest tests show that his mother-in-law’s stage -four pancreatic cancer has spread.

Thankfulness doesn’t come naturally in such circumstances. It doesn’t come naturally at all. Like all good graces and the fruits of the Spirit, the seeds of gratitude must be carefully and deliberately cultivated in the soil of the soul.

God helps us to do that if we’ll let him.

When international evangelist Nick Vujicic, who was born without arms or legs, was asked if he had ever been bitter toward God for his disability, he said he knew that was one response he could have chosen. Instead, Nick says, “I chose gratitude.” In a worldwide ministry that pulsates with joy and optimism, that choice has made all the difference.

Thankfulness is a choice. Shall we choose to be grateful? We’ve got a big basketful of reasons.

May God bless you and your family. And have a Happy Thanlksgiving.

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