Thanksgiving . . . A Scope Beyond Imagination

Lately I have been reflecting a lot on what is "good" or what makes something "good." More and more I am coming to realize that things are not inherently good on their own, but it is God who gives something its "goodness." Many times in the Bible God says He has no part of things that would appear to us to be "good" or "religious" or even "Christian"—enough times for me to realize that things don't have inherent goodness in themselves, to realize that good doesn't exist on its own in a vacuum.

When the rich young ruler calls Jesus "good teacher" Jesus confronts him with the question, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone" (Mark 10:18). There is a direct forcing of a point here that we can't afford to miss as we, on our own standards and definitions, label things and acts and people "good." I believe Jesus is cutting through our loose usage of that word and asking the young ruler, "Are you prepared to call me God, because God alone is good? If I am not God, then don't call me good."

James captures to me the danger and possibility of our separating good from God when it says, "Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." (James 1:16-17) There is such a clear warning here and message that we can be deceived, we can be wrong, we can fall into the trap of believing that good can come outside of God

The implications of these thoughts are huge and I'll try and summarize two of them as best as I can because I believe that they are essential to our understanding (and they'll make our Thanksgiving really special!).

First: In sin we are separated from God who is, Himself, life and light and good. We are cut off from He who is the very source and essence of these things and though we walk and talk and stand in bright sunlight the Bible says that we are dead and in the dark in the ways that matter and are eternal. We are cut off from God, and if God is the only source of good then we are cut off from the possibility of doing good—because good doesn't exist apart from God. Carry this out a bit and we realize why God says there are none righteous or good, and why it is impossible for us to approach God or produce goodness on our own. We can't produce what we don't have. God is good and He gives things their "goodness" and so, separated from Him by sin, we dwell under sin and Satan's dominion or rule—and it is a realm of death and decay and deception and disease and hurt and lies and broken relationships and cruel words and jealousy and lust and covetousness and . . .

This really drives home to me the heart of why Christ came. Apart from Christ I am in a situation that is hopeless because it is impossible to save myself because good doesn't exist outside of God. I can't go find and collect enough of it because it is only found in God and I am separated from Him. As a non-Christian, thinking myself "good" by some societal standard, I chaffed against that idea that I wasn't "good" because I didn't realize that at the core "good" can't be separated from God, or defined apart from God. It is not something inherent in things or acts, it is inherent in God . . . He gives it that which makes it good. Understanding this now I understand how desperately in need of a Savior I was, One who could do for me what I could not do alone.

Second: I realize in this understanding of good that in this world turned over to sin and Satan's dominion, there is no good found on its own. Sin and Satan have no good in them because they have no partnership with God . . . and, again, good is found only in God. Remember Jesus' words in John 15 where He says He is the vine and we are the branches—abiding or remaining in Him we produce much fruit, but apart from Him we can do nothing. It is His life flowing through us that produces good from us. Apart from Him, though active and "productive," I can do nothing. Nothing. Nothing that is of value or eternal life.

Sin is death. It is separation from God and from good. It is the root of all pain and decay. And it is under sin's weight that our world groans. It is impossible for it to produce good because it has no good and so, as I approach Thanksgiving, I do so realizing that EVERY bit of good in my life is a direct result of God intervening in my life with His grace and glory and power and shielding me from sin's effect and curse.

Much of what people blame on God causing I think is simply God not intervening. Of God allowing sin and the Fall to have their natural effect. When there is good in my life it is because God has put it there. Every meal I eat. Every time my cells do what they are supposed to, or my lungs open for air. Every bit of clothing I wear. Every time I smile or am smiled at. I love or am loved. Every laugh. Every beautiful view. Sin can't produce good and so I realize that everyone of those, from the smallest cellular level, is God at work in my life.

God, the star breather, at work in my life personally and intimately at the smallest level of detail. God noticing me and acting on my behalf. God caring and moving. It leaves me in awe that He would be that involved in my life, but I often haven't recognized how active He is in my life because I've not given Him credit for the tiniest level of good.

If every bit of good in my life is God at work in my life, then, wow, I have a lot to be thankful for!

(Thanks for) An Unfathomable God!

The current world's population is estimated at over 7,080,000,000 people. Depending on your "origins" beliefs you can estimate from that how many people have ever lived on the earth over its life. It is a stunning number and yet, as the man performing a wedding I attended last weekend said, each and every one is different—no two are ever alike—and we are all made in God's image.

Setting aside the theological differences about what it actually means to be in His image, we can say that every person who has ever lived is different and yet every person reflects God's image in some way. Isn't it an awesome comfort to know that our God is so big and so vast and so unfathomable that billions upon billions of people can each represent a facet of Him and we still don't have a complete picture of Him?! I am so glad that God is so huge. I wouldn't want to trust my life to a god who was so small I could fully grasp and understand Him. It is so comforting to know that the God I trust and serve and depend on is so big that I will spend eternity discovering more and more of the riches of the knowledge and mystery of Him.

Kite

Just sharing a neat blessing . . . yesterday our family took a town day for some personal errands and to buy stuff for youth group. We tried to make part of it a fun "summer" day for the girls, and included shooting over to Morro Bay to spend some time at the beach. Before we left Abigail asked if they could take their kites. We were running late getting out, and I wasn't sure where one kite was or the condition of the other, and I didn't know that we'd have a lot of time to fly them, so I said no and gave Abigail permission to bug me about the kites so that we'd do it another time this summer. They were cheerful about it and easy going.

So . . . we get to Morro Rock and the beach near it and walk out around the rock to show them the ocean on the other side of the breakwater. Then, coming back they picked the path down to the beach so they could wade and play. I get to where they were waiting for me (Dad had to stop and look at some of the rocks the sign claims are millions of years old) and I look to the left and there, laying on the sand with nobody around for probably 50 yards, is a brand new kite, still in its bag. We tried to see if we could see anyone whose it might be and couldn't. Before we left we even asked someone with a similar kite if it was theirs. No.

Needless to say . . . our girls flew a kite that day. One specially placed, I believe, just for them. Thanks God!

The Heavens Declare — Part 4

In this fourth part of this series, drawing from a handout I made for our fellowship, let's travel out from our solar system and take a quick look at our Milky Way Galaxy.

So, then how big is our Milky Way galaxy our solar system calls home? Well, take this approximately 1.5 mile walk you just took representing our solar system (see The Heavens Declare — Part 3), and condense it down to the size of a quarter—picture our whole solar system in that coin. If a quarter represents our solar system, then, according to some web sites I found, the next nearest star to our sun (and any stuff orbiting around that star) would be another quarter, about two soccer fields away . . . and the edges of our galaxy would be the east and west coasts of the United States! To travel across it? If you traveled at the speed of light it would take you 100,000 years to cross just our galaxy . . . which is estimated to have in it 200–400 billion stars alone!

God Thought: Isaiah 40:26 says, “Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of His might, and because He is strong in power not one is missing”—He who guards the stars, also guards you. He who makes sure one isn’t missing, seeks you when you are lost. Read the entire chapter of Luke 15 for an amazing assurance of how precious you are to Him.

The Heaven's Declare — Part 3

Continuing the series, and moving farther out from a few stunning facts about our earth and sun, the next part I shared about in my teaching (and the handout I later made that I am taking these from) is about our Solar System. Next post, our Milky Way galaxy. After that, our universe. 
   As with all these posts, I can't verify the facts, but I've tried to get them from web sites that seem to know what they are talking about (whatever that exactly means). Enjoy. Reflect. And be in awe. We have a mighty and awesome God, and the Heavens declare His glory. Don't forget the "God Thought" at the end of each post . . . He, and your faith and relationship with Him, is truly what this is all about, not just getting puffed up with some more knowledge. May He pour out revelation and a deep awareness of His love for you and His presence as you read this.   —Erick

Our Solar System
How big is the network of our sun and the planets orbiting it? Let’s use an example someone made up of a walk. Imagine each 3' step you take to represent 1,000,000 miles (yes, one million miles). Picture a football field and start at the back of one of the end zones and pretend you are where the sun is. Now walk forward, cross the end zone, past the 50 yard line, and continue in to your opponent’s side of the field. When you get to their 17 yard line you have reached the earth (remember, each step was 1 million miles!). Now, continue walking over 1.5 miles and you will get to Neptune, the farthest out planet if you don’t want to count poor Pluto (if you do you’ll need to walk over 2 miles from the back of the end zone where you started). The same site said that if you got on a jet and flew at 600 miles per hour from the Sun to Neptune, it would take 513 years. If you could drive the same distance, it would take 4,400 years.

Defining a Few Terms
Since we are starting from here out to get into some terms that represent some big numbers, here's a few simplified definitions and way of looking at things to help us try and grasp them.


Light Year: How far you would travel in one year if you traveled constantly at the speed of light, which is about 186,000 miles per second (or, around the world at the equator over seven times in a second).

Billion: If you typed the letter “a” on a sheet of paper 1,000 times, you’d need 1 million sheets to have a billion letter “a”s. Or, if you started counting now, it would take you 32 years to count a billion seconds.

Astronomical: We use this term to describe things really, really BIG! No wonder. It comes from the root “astro” pertaining to stars and celestial bodies.

God Thought: Ephesians 1:4 says that “. . . He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world”—before He created one bit of this He already knew you, loved you, and had a plan to restore you to Him through Jesus’ death. You are truly precious! In fact, His entire creation of the universe was the opening act to His culmination . . . creating us!

She Considered Him Faithful . . .

I know faith has been used, at times, like a club that beats someone up further who hasn't been healed or seen a prayer answered and heard the words, "You don't have enough faith." That is sad. Faith is a beautiful word when used in the context of our confidence and trust in God, His Word, His character, His goodness, His promises. And, yes, faith does, often, play a role in God moving—the Bible is filled with stories of people whose faith caused something to happen—and it also records God moving in other times when it seems no faith was involved.

I have been teaching recently on the amazing, divine invitation we have from God as Christians to surrender our will and "kingdom" to His will and "kingdom" and to let His will be done where we have a realm of influence. It is amazing and awe inspiring and exciting that God invites us to colabor with Him and to be a part of His will and work—that He dwells in us, leads us, and offers Himself to us to partner in plans eternal, and to be a part of His kingdom driving back darkness. How could we ever buy the lie that we can somehow, on our own, make decisions for our life that will give us more happiness, meaning, purpose, joy, security, etc. then partnering with our Creator in the very plans and works He created us for?! Yet, how often each day we decide we can better secure our happiness or security or meaning than He can. It is so foolish . . . and yet, a lie we fall for far too often.

These last few Sundays I've been talking about some of the reasons we don't surrender to His will. Sometimes we don't want to give up control—our lives are already so regulated and to give up even more control of them seems to diminish us. Or, maybe we don't trust God—I know we'd never admit that, but it is true at some level for most of us. Maybe we don't trust Him to make us happy, or to speak to us, or to take care of us. Maybe we are afraid that what we think we need isn't what He thinks we need when He promises to take care of our needs. Maybe we are offended or angry at God because of something that happened to us once, or a prayer that wasn't answered, and it makes it hard for us to trust Him. There are so many reasons we might resist His will and choose our own in any given moment of our life.

One of the most powerful and revealing verses in the Bible to me is Hebrews 11:11. It says, "By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised." Sarah, who mocked and didn't believe, had a promise from God for a child. At some point, after her mocking, it seems she stopped and took her unbelief captive to something and that gave her faith. Her faith brought out the life and power that was dormant in God's promise, waiting, and it came to pass. So, what did she take her unbelief captive to? To God Himself. To His character. Somewhere in there she stopped, recognized the lie and the error of her thinking, and realized just who it was that promised her. It was God! The God who created the Heavens! And, by taking her doubts and, maybe, fears, captive to the person of God Himself they melted away and were replaced by a faith that brought life to God's promise and she received the power to conceive. Her faith brought power, and life.

When we look at ourselves, we find, I believe, one of two things. If we are arrogant and proud we find a false confidence built on frail and temporal bodies and minds. If we are self-critical and even honest with ourselves we find little confidence because we realize how limited we are and how fragile we are. But, when we look at God we find something else, altogether! We find an all powerful God who loves us beyond measure and who never leaves us or forsakes us. We find a God who invites us to colabor with Him and to partake in the Kingdom's resources to bring His will and plans together. We find a Creator who created us for special works and leads us in fulfilling them, hence fulfilling the very purpose we were created for. We find a God who breathes out stars and yet says to us, "I want to spend eternity with you!" Suddenly, when we consider Him and not ourselves, His capability and not ours, His wisdom and not ours, His power and not ours, our faith is increased and the impossible becomes possible when it is Him leading us.

Sarah was bound by the world and her experience and her limitation. If formed the basis of her expectation, and in those boundaries she had no expectation of a child. But then she considered Him, and who He is, and His character and nature and power, and she realized that, while she is frail, He is faithful, and He has promised, and she was filled with faith and believed. And the power to conceive came upon her.

What has God invited you to colabor in? Are you considering yourself, or Him, in your assessing of it. When our own capability and resources form the outer boundary of our expectations the boundaries are small . . . but when He leads and we surrender and His capability and resources form the outer boundaries of our expectations, we find there are, in fact, no boundaries that exceed His capacity. He is faithful, even when we are not. Let us consider Him . . .

God is Amazing

Sometimes we move so fast that we miss the miracles in front of us. I snapped this shot last month in our garden and wanted to share it with you. Notice the pollen on the bee (in FireFox—I don't know about other browsers—you can click on the picture and it will take you to a larger version, then you can hit the back arrow to come back to the blog). Isn't God amazing? I find such comfort in knowing that since He has paid attention to the tiniest details in Creation I can trust Him with the details of my life, no matter how tiny. I really encourage you, today, to stop and "be still and know that He is God" as the Psalm says. Whether it is the details in a garden, the flight of birds above you, or the glory of the night sky above you, just stop and be still and let who He is and His awesome wonder and might and breadth and power wash over you and bring everything you are dealing with back into its proper perspective. God bless you all, and may today be a wonderful day filled with a deep awareness of His love for you and presence with you.

David's Cry: Part 3

David, standing alone in faith in His God, slings the stone at Goliath.

Part 3 of 5 in a series on David’s cry to God in Psalm 89:26, "You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation."

If “Father” (see Part 2) is the only way we, as Christians, know to see, and relate to, God, we would have a partial picture of Him and our relationship with Him, but one that can lead us into error if we rely only on it as we can tend to ignore, grow casual to, or even walk away from a father. But, that isn’t the only aspect of God we see in David’s cry to Him—to this man after God’s own heart He is our Father, and our God!

According to Strongs this Hebrew word for God here means strength—as an adjective it is mighty, especially the Almighty.

God. Let that word roll around in your mouth and mind for a bit—God.

He is God. He breathes out stars and spreads the stars and galaxies out as a tent within which He dwells. He knits us together in our mother’s womb. He is holy—completely set apart from all evil or imperfection.

He is just, and He has wrath toward sin and evil. There is nothing that compares to Him, nothing we can compare Him to—He is indescribable, uncontainable, and nothing ranks above Him or even near Him.

He speaks and worlds are formed, and in His very word is the power of to bring it to life and to pass. He spans a universe, and yet knows our every thought and the number of hairs on our head. He strikes dead anywhere from 70 to 50,000 men of Beth-shemesh (depending on how you interpret the Hebrew and what translation you use—see 1 Samuel 6:19–20) for looking upon the ark of the covenant, causing the people of the village to cry out, “Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God?”

He is God—holy and pure and ferocious, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Alpha and the Omega, the One who descends upon the mountain in fire and smoke and a great dark cloud, and who causes the people of Israel to tremble in fear and to run from relationship with Him, preferring to let Moses do it.

He is God, and all this is true about Him, and He is worthy of our highest affection, our unashamed and unrestrained worship, our reverence, our service, our devotion, our deepest love. He is God, but . . .

. . . if that is all we know about Him we relate to Him only with fear, if we relate to Him at all. We do not draw close, but like Adam and Eve we hide from Him. If all we know of Him is as God, then we tremble and wait for His wrath to fall on us and to consume us in His holy fire.

But that isn’t all we know about Him, is it? What kind of a God is He? He is our Father. What kind of a Father is He? He is God. And thus, the picture starts to become a little more complete as we add another piece. This word “God,” like the word “Father,” is also worthy of hours and hours of our reflection and meditation upon, and as we do we will find that the word “Father” magnifies and gives detail to the word “God”, and the word “God” magnifies and gives detail to the word “Father.” Together they help us start to form an even more complete and accurate picture of both Him, and our relationship to Him, and it doesn’t end there. To David He is also the Rock of his salvation . . . and we will take a look at all of meaning and implications in that in Part 4.

Until then, may you find a renewed and awesome awakening to what it means to know Him as God. May you experience a deep and new realization of what He is like and what His glory and holiness are like. God bless you, and thanks for reading.

Erick

A Great and Mighty God!

I am sitting here studying, looking out at the rain going sideways and almost obscuring the near hills, and I am struck by how huge our God is. During the summer, spring, and fall I get really comfortable in my house and its security, and, then, in storms like these, I realize, again, just how frail the things of man are.

This morning we had lightning filling the sky, and the crack and rumbling roar of thunder drive the girls to our bed and fill our ears with a sound that is truly mighty to hear and experience. The wind, pounding our house and yard and trees with mighty gusts that could uproot trees and rip shingles off of roofs, reminds me that my house and roof and fences are really so very, very frail in the face of nature's ferocity (is that a word?). The hurricanes and tornadoes and earthquakes and tsunamis and volcanoes that all make up nature's arsenal remind me that there is truly, nothing, that man can make that can withstand what God has made.

It is in moments like this that I realize just how vulnerable I am, and how truly tiny I am in the face of God and who He is and what He has made. I find myself so very, very glad that He is my God, and I am His child, and that He is my refuge and my strength and my eternal shelter.

As Mary Ann and I had a cup of coffee in front of our fire this morning the girls watched a video in their play area about God's Creation and, even in the little bit I heard during quiet moments in our conversation, I was again reminded how truly amazing and awesome God is. (Did you ever stop to think that if ice sank instead of floated that our lakes and rivers and eventually oceans would become a pure block of ice and the earth would be uninhabitable?)

I am amazed, truly amazed, that I once could look at all of this Creation around me—all of its intricate, perfect detail and interaction; and all of its amazing complexity and systems that had to exist all at once or not at all—and have believed so strongly that it was all the product of accidental happenings that I even mocked those who believed in Creation. My, how that veil does blind! I thank the Lord that the veil has been removed and I know have seen the truth.

We are truly tiny. We are truly, even at our most intelligent and creative, so small and proud and rebellious against God. It is all the more reason to be amazed, and eternally grateful, that He could love us so much He would die for us and then hold us so tight that all the powers of Hell can't keep us from spending forever with Him. I am so glad I can trust in Him and rest in Him and find strength and peace and understanding in Him—He is truly awesome and mighty and worthy of all honor and praise and love and glory. He is a great, great, mighty God!

A Devotional on Loving God . . .

Mary Ann and I are big fans of quality Christian movies. As such we have really valued the ministry of Dave Christiano who produces Christian movies, and also sells Christian films through his ministry Christian Films.com.

This week he sent out an email newsletter and in it he reprints a devotional from a friend of his, Jimmy D. Brown (www.living4jesus.com). In light of what I have been studying this week, and I have asked both you and the fellowship I pastor to meditate on (what it means to love God), I found this to be more than coincidence. I contacted Jimmy D. Brown and received his permission to reprint the devotional here:

I was reading this week and just one of the most basic verses of Scripture there is just really resonated with me: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength".

That's it. That's everything. That's the whole entire thing we're supposed to do here on earth all rolled up in one simple statement. Love the Lord with everything we have.

Oh how our families and other relationships would be blessed if everyone did it. There would be no more Tiger Wood headlines. Nor wars in the middle east. Nor thievery or murders or hatred. No more broken homes and cheaters and selfishness and pride.

If every one of us just loved the Lord with everything we have, what a different world we'd live in.

Just love Him. More than anything else. With all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

Or, said another way...

Keep Christ First!

Jimmy

It is truly something to stop on for awhile and meditate about. What does it look like to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength? What would it look like if more did it? I think we might be truly shocked at what God stands ready to do through one person who would simply love Him with everything he or she has.

I Gots to Know!

Email Subscribers: I have changed the automatic delivery time of email notifications of new posts within the last 24 hours from 3–5 pm (Pacific) to 3–5 am (Pacific). My hope is that you will see any post from the day before to start the day and not half way through it, but I don’t want them to be buried in a block of overnight email either. Please let me know how this works for you. Thanks for reading!

Today's Post: Over the recent months God has been impressing more and more on me the core essential nature of two commands which Jesus emphasized and left us with found in Mark 12:30–31 and other places. These are, from Mark, “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

According to Jesus, all other commandments, and in fact the whole law, hang on these. In fact, it is safe to say from the Bible, that love should be the very fragrance of the Christian—the defining mark by which the world will judge both our Christianity, and even Jesus Himself.

So, I have shared with our fellowship that we will be beginning a period of looking at these two commandments, starting with loving the Lord, our God, with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength, and at some point moving in to loving our neighbor as ourself—loving others as Christ loved us. While there is nothing I will be able to teach that will “make”anyone love God with their all (that is a transaction each person must choose to make with God), we can look at what God means by that, what it should look like, and what our role in it is.

In our society, love has been reduced to a feeling that comes and goes, and a word we all use way to casually and easily, when, in reality, I believe that love is probably more costly, and more of a choice, than many of us, including myself, realize—both in our love for God and our love for others. I have asked our fellowship to meditate on this first commandment. I really look forward to hearing what God shares with us on what He means by loving Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

So, as the bank robber said to Dirty Harry when Clint Eastwood made his famous, “So, do you feel lucky, punk?” line, “I gots to know!”—I “gots” to know what YOU think God means by loving Him with all of our heart, soul, mind/understanding, and strength. What is He asking? What does it really look like? Does He really mean ALL, and if so how can that be? What is our role in it? What might our life look like if we really did that? Your prayerful comments on this will, I believe, bless both me and others. Please consider meditating on this most important commandment (it is a command, by the way) of all, and don't shy away from the depth of choice and cost you may come to realize it means.

Note: In keeping in the vein of the Clint Eastwood theme of this post, what follows is a fun piece of useless trivia about me for any of you interested in not just my thoughts and reflections, but also in me as a person (ignore it if not—no hard feelings).

When I was at West Point in the mid-80s I was a huge Clint Eastwood fan (especially of his westerns). My roommate, from Puerto Rico, was as well, and to hear him recite lines from Eastwood’s movies in a Puerto Rican, twirled r accent, was really quite fun! (The picture is of him and me in front of the Clint Eastwood poster on the back of our room’s door.) We memorized many of Eastwood's classic lines (“When you have to shoot, shoot, don’t talk,” plus, “I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth...,” and, “Dyin' ain't much of a living, boy,” plus more). When Clint was elected mayor of my hometown of Carmel, California, it warranted a special late night phone call from my folks with the election news, and when I made the varsity pistol team my dad had a friend of his who was also a friend of Clint’s get me an autographed still from the movie The Outlaw Josey Wales, with a note written on it from Clint Eastwood congratulating me. Now, all of that is probably way more than most of you would ever want to know, but a few of you may enjoy it. God bless (and, no, I don’t still memorize his lines—now I memorize God’s lines—smile).

A Christmas Wish, Story, and Thought . . .

First, a Christmas wish. I wish each and every one of you the joy of Christmas. May the message and wonder of salvation and God's love permeate your spiritual pores until it embodies all you are and think. May it so fill you with joy and peace that no circumstance that comes your way can dent it. May you find your heart and hands and voice lifted toward heaven with uncontainable, spontaneous awe and worship and love and adoration!

Second, a neat story. We spent Monday in Carmel on our "traditional" (in our family, anything twice becomes tradition) day of Christmas shopping and hanging out with my mom. We begin the "tradition" each time (this is our second time) with my dad joining us for coffee at Il Fornio, and we are batting 100% in getting the seat by the fire. You can enjoy the moment with us in our "traditional" picture, above. Last year's picture is in the right column of the blog, a ways down, if you want to see how much the girls are growing in a year (or how well I am aging—ha, ha).

Anyway, while shopping mom took the girls for a few minutes to a store so Mary Ann and I could be clandestine and get a few things. About five minutes before leaving Carmel Plaza to rejoin them, my left ankle started hurting with a real sharp pain that made it uncomfortable walking. We crossed the street and a woman passed in front of us on the sidewalk, being pushed in a wheelchair by a man whom I assume was her husband. We fell in step behind them and as I looked at her foot in a cast I thought about Jesus and Christmas and His love and power. I spoke kind of loud to them as they were a few steps ahead of us, "Can we pray for you?" They stopped and said, "Okay."

Now often people caught like that think you mean, "Can I pray for you sometime in the future or when I think about it." They usually don't think you mean "right now, on this corner, in downtown Carmel" so I quickly added "now" and moved up beside them. Mary Ann joined me and I put my hand on the woman's shoulder and we all bowed our heads there by the intersection and I asked God to pour out over them, to defy the doctors with her healing, and for it to be the best, most God-filled Christmas they have ever had. After we were done praying they thanked us and we parted. As we left them and began walking up a hill toward our rendezvous with my mom and the girls, I noticed that MY ankle pain was gone! How cool is that!

Third, a Christmas thought. I shared this in much more detail with our church on Sunday, but I wanted to share its core here with all of you as well.

When the angel appeared to the shepherds he said, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Lu 2:10-11). There is, in this proclamation, the foundation of our whole faith and joy. When everything else is stripped away, when theology is confusing us more than helping us, when life has broken us, there is a place of joy we can turn to.

The angels said that the birth of Christ (which would end at the cross) was:
1) Good News!
2) of Great Joy!
and it was to all the people! He didn't say, "to people of secure finances" or "to people who have a great marriage" or "to those who have it all together." No, he said that this good news, of great joy, was available to all people. Now Jesus didn't go and fix every earthly problem, but He did pay for our sins that we might be restored to our Father in heaven if we would embrace His gift and Lordship. So, this is clearly an "eternal" joy—a joy fixed on our eternal condition, tied in to Jesus' role as Savior. It shows the Father's emphasis on eternity over simply the now (though I do believe He desires us to joyfully walk in, and use, the authority He gives us to tackle and destroy the works of the devil in this life, as well).

The other day I hit a real low spot. I wasn't sure anymore what this pastoring was about or supposed to look like, or what I was supposed to be telling people, and it seemed like every "theological" conclusion I came to I was finding a verse to contradict it. I felt closer to stepping down than I have ever felt, and I was sitting by the fire with Mary Ann and I told her, "I don't know what this is about any more." She said, "Yes, you do." She then said something to the effect of, "God loves you and He sent His Son to die for you and you are His forever." It was utterly simple, and it touched and stirred something so deep in me I can't explain it. When all else is stripped away, when you feel like a failure, when life crashes in, that is the core, foundational message that it all comes back to—that is the message that never changes or leaves you—it is the good news, of great joy, that is unto me and you. This doesn't mean we take joy in clear victories of the devil, but it does mean that no matter what is stripped away there is, at the core, a place that can't be touched and which we must always return to—a place which simply is our eternal, born again, new creation life with God that can't be taken from us, and that came because His Son came to earth and died for us out of a love beyond our comprehension.

The utter simplicity and foundational essence of that reminder brought to life for me, again, the Christmas proclamation—and I hope it helps you, too. God bless each and every one of you, and Merry Christmas!

It’s Not a Bathtub With Cute Giraffes Popping Out!

I love being surrounded by things that remind us of God. Bethany and Abigail play with a cute Noah’s Ark toy that I had as a kid, we hang Christmas ornaments with Bible pictures, we send and receive cards with pictures of Bible things on them, and we decorated our girl’s crib area with cute little Noah’s Arks that are delightful to a baby with their elephants and giraffes sticking their HUGE heads out of the TINY ark. These are delightful and wonderful and I’d probably decorate our nursery again with them, so don’t take what I am about to say as being a “kill joy” or “conspiracy theorist.”

These things are, I believe, fun and a great way to introduce our children to the testimony of the Lord’s work through history, but they may, unbeknownst to us, aid in undermining our faith in the account when we get a little older if we aren’t careful and diligent to replace those cute images with real facts about things like the ark.

What I mean by that is this—the ark would have had to have thousands and thousands of animals in it to do what God said it did, and if we try and fit the Biblical account of Noah in to an image of the ark that goes back to our childhood nursery or toy, we will, by necessity, find doubt about the account (hence God’s Word) creeping in. There is simply no way the account of Noah’s Ark could be true if it is anything like the way we usually see it pictured and, if that is our picture of it, we will begin to doubt or try and water down this account of God’s judgment and the faith that preserved a righteous people through it. I don’t care where doubt in God’s Word creeps in—it will always, from there, try and slink and slither its way toward the core of God’s Word, the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ.

So, yesterday for the history time of homeschool, we took my 50' tape measure and started in our yard and took it nine times down our driveway and across our road in to our neighbors field to make the Bible’s recorded 450' length of the ark come to life for us. I can tell you, if you have never done that, that was one big ship! Wow—it truly was an awesome, mighty vessel worthy to sustain the violent upheaval of the earth and heaven’s waters! Looking at its size you can see how Noah was a giant of faith to persevere in building it!

So, if you ever want to be blown away, and to have your faith restored, come on over. You can now stand outside our kitchen window and look up at the nail in our wall marking Goliath’s height (9' 6" in our case, though some say he was 10' 6"). Or, you can look at the nail in our wall at 15' off the ground marking the diameter the sun would be if the earth were the size of a golf ball. Or, you can now stand in our driveway and stare all the way down it and across to our neighbor’s field at the circuit breaker standing there 450' feet away, and be awed by the ark and the man of faith who believed in God’s Word enough to build it. No wonder God sought to preserve faith like that!

(Note: You can see a picture of our girls under the Goliath and sun nails in our wall in my Oct. 6th post, “Fallen Giants and Big Stars — Good Reminders . . .”)

Thank You . . .

Thanks to all of you praying for us and our youth "camp." God really answered all the prayers. I am posting here two pictures from the fire so you can see what you were praying against. One is a view (slightly zoomed) from our driveway. The tiny dot in the smoke just above the trees is a very large air tanker! The second picture is from the lower part of our property looking over our property to the plume behind it (our home is just behind the hill in the center). The wind changed, the fire turned, and our community was saved. Thank you! Thank You God! (For you who are signed up to get this on email, I am sorry for posting two pictures. I hope it didn't take too long to download, I tried to make them small. I just felt you would value seeing what we were seeing since you were with us here in prayer.)

The youth arrived back here about 9 am (including the one that wasn't answering her phone or door) and we had a great meal of pancakes, etc. We then settled in to the classes. We taught the kids about the battle around them, and for them; about how you can't build a solid house that is bigger than the foundation you build it on is able to support; about spiritual warfare; about the example Jesus set for taking time away from ministry to be alone with the Father; about understanding how the Bible is laid out and how to read verse references; about how God does not despise their youth and how they can be revolutionaries to dream big and change a generation and a nation---at the age they are at now; and so much more.

Three times during the camp we sent the youth out around our yard and home for quiet time. For many of them it was the first time they had ever taken it---just them and God alone together. We wouldn't let them take watches or anything. The first time we kept them out a little over 20 minutes (we added 5 minutes each time) and most came in amazed because they said it was too short. We had first read them the parable of the seeds and soil, and then we had taken a walk where we showed them places that birds had snatched seed we had planted and scattered; soil where we had planted grain in the last rain and it had sprouted but then withered and died, fields where the thorns and weeds were choking out the good grasses, and our garden bed where we water it, fertilize it, and tend it. Their first quiet time we asked them to ask God what kind of soil their own heart was, and then to just listen to what He might tell them.

The second quiet time we had them read about Peter walking on the water and then asked them a bunch of questions about it---what is the most beautiful verse in it to you? Is there a promise in there for you? Is God asking something of you in it? What is your response? Plus, a lot more. The third quiet time we just let them go out unscripted. It was amazing how God spoke to those youth, and I believe that many of them were amazed that He did as well.

We watched some videos on a 6' screen out on the lawn at night, including an incredible presentation from the Passion tour about how huge and amazing and indescribable our God is and how the heavens reveal that. It was really, really awesome to do that under the night sky (a sky clear of smoke, by the way!). We ended up, totally unscripted, watching a second Passion presentation the next morning about God and how amazing He is and how that is revealed in the size of the stars and in the intricate center of our molecules. Those videos really grabbed the youth and we have decided to show them on the big screen at church in the fall and see how many people we can bring to see it. The youth are really fired up about that.

I could write all day about what happened, but I wanted to just share a slice of it with you. Probably one of the best parts was when a former youth grouper who we had as a counselor picked up his guitar in the morning and started playing it. A girl in the youth group who is on our church's worship team sat down and started singing, and we brought our keyboard down for her. We debated calling the kids in, but then decided to let them play or whatever while we were cleaning up breakfast and just see what God did. Soon, totally on their own, every person at the camp was in the living room singing worship songs! Man, God's Spirit was all over it! Everyone, from Bethany and Abigail, to the youth, to the staff, was touched and changed by God. Thanks, again, for your prayers.

Another Blackaby Quote . . .

Here is another passage from Henry Blackaby's book, Created to be God's Friend, about Abraham. I put it out here for your reflection.

He writes (page 126, the previous post's quote was from page 131): When I was just a little boy, God convinced me that He is God, and I was not! This realization shaped the rest of my life. I have never entered His Presence without this strong awareness. So I cannot remember arguing with God, or demanding of God, or doubting God. I cannot remember fussing with God, or debating with God. He is God! And I am not! Therefore, I choose to let Him be God in and through my life. I constantly stand amazed at God's consistent blessing in my life and in my family!

This means that at every point in my life I have only one decision to make---is this clearly God's will? If it is, I confirm it with my wife and children, and then proceed. There are always a hundred details to work out. But I am, and have always been, confident that since I know His will, each and all of these details He will work out or help me to work out in my life.

Many have said to me about their situation, "If these four things work out, I will know it is God's will!" I try gently to suggest that if this is God's will, those four things will work out! The key is God, not circumstances. Abraham was learning this one day and one circumstance at a time.

A Quote from Henry Blackaby . . .

Hello! I have been reading through a book by Henry Blackaby (the author of Experiencing God) called Created to be God's Friend. It is about the life of Abraham and how God built him in to His friend (James says that Abraham was a friend of God---is that an awesome statement or what?!?). Blackaby talks about the part in Genesis 18 when God asks if He should tell Abraham what He is about to do (to Sodom and the region) and then decides to share His heart and plans with Abraham.

Blackaby says this: It is a moment of trembling to realize the Heart of God, but this comes to the one who chooses to let God draw him closer to Himself. Often this will occur in one, while others around him do not know anything at all about the seriousness of the moment with God. But God desires such a relationship, where He can share His heart. This is the “friend” He is looking for. This is the kind of relationship He is shaping in the one He calls. This one will see farther, see clearer, and see more than others around him. This, too, will often separate him from those around him, especially because of the intensity with God this revelation creates. It is sometimes lonely being a “friend of God”!

I found this paragraph really spoke to, and stirred, my heart. I want to be a friend to God. I want to be one whom doesn't just tell Him my heart, but who is available to hear His. One who listens and doesn't just talk. One He can trust with His heart. One who will take seriously the things that make Him rejoice, and the things that cause Him sadness. I know that is sometimes lonely---I imagine at times Moses and Noah and Peter and Paul felt very alone among men---but I want to be willing to trade all of the friendship of man for the friendship of God if it was required. I don't want to be this for more of His praise or to earn anything from Him---I am so, so glad that He loves me just as I am, and that He has such grace for me just as I am---but I want to do this because being a friend of God seems to me to be one of the most amazing things a man (or woman or child) could be . . . and it would mean that I had come to the point where what He had to say to me and share with me had become as important to me as what I want to say to and share with Him. I can say it is, but if I don't position myself to receive it and to be faithful in its trust then it doesn't mean much to me to say it.

Part III of "Cages" . . .

As I have reflected over these weeks on the necessity and urgency of taking our thoughts captive to God's Word, God's promises, God's character, and God's testimony (see last two posts), I have been struck with the underlying, critical foundation for this, which is accurately KNOWING God's Word, His promises, His character, and His testimony. It doesn't do us any good (in fact it may hurt us more) to take our thoughts and feelings captive to a misconception about God. That is one of the reasons I so value looking at the life of Christ in the Gospels because He is the image of the Father—the representation of the Father's nature. He is a wonderful focal point for people who have trouble relating to a "good" Father. He is the perfect representation of the Father's love, His goodness, His compassion, and His embracing of people who turn to Him no matter where they have been or what they have done. He shows the heart of the Father in all that He is, says, and does.

God tells us to study and meditate on His Word, and diligently doing that is the only way to determine the full (and accurate) picture of our Father's character and heart (I say "full" knowing that we won't know His "full" picture, but in the context of knowing all that we can). Just like we make a major mistake to take God's promises out of context and apart from the precepts and conditions attached to them, we make a major mistake to ignore parts of God's character. It is only in a full picture of God that we start to understand His holiness, His awesome majesty and power, His jealous nature, His hatred of sin, and His love that sent His Son to die to fulfill the covenant-breaking curse of death we should have fulfilled. As we understand His different names we start to understand different aspects of His character. As we see Jesus we see Him. As we study His Word we see His heart expressed.

The more accurately we can know God, the more accurately we can take our thoughts and feelings captive to Him. If we take them captive to a false idea about Him we have set ourselves up to follow a lie and take a fall which can actually lead us to bitterness or anger toward God because we feel like He "didn't come through" or "didn't do His part" when, in fact, He never gave us a true reason to believe He should or would. Another danger of not accurately knowing God and His Word and His character is that we tend to blame on God things the devil did, and accept things thinking they are from God that are in fact from the devil. Just as I am blessed and honored the more I learn about Mary Ann and her heart, or my girls and their hearts, I am most blessed and honored when I learn more about God's heart. Isn't He awesome!