On Finishing Well (Part One)

I am in the last half of my life. And that’s okay with me. What I see when I look into the mirror is a man who has lived a good life, lost some hair, gained some lb’s (no ugly comments from the peanut gallery!), acquired a couple laugh lines, and flecks of gray. And I see something else for which I give God the praise for allowing me this grace: a determination to finish well.

February 1978.

It was the final game of my high school basketball ‘career’. We were playing a patsy and were simply going through the motions, having been bounced from the playoffs by two points in the previous game. We were heartsick and bored, and coach was emptying the bench to make sure everyone had enough P.T. as the season drew to a melancholy end. Only I was kept in all four quarters, and the reason was, although captain of the team and averaging close to double digits, I had not scored 20 points in any game all year long. Coach wanted to address this. So he kept me in.

I started the game hot. Nearly everything I threw in the direction of the backboard went in. Some amazing shots, believe me. By halftime, twenty points was well within reach but something happened in the dressing room at intermission. Coach said, “we’re gonna leave Scott in so he can get his twenty, but that shouldn’t be too long.” He said this to enliven the hopes of my backup forwards who had not yet seen any action but when the curtain opened on the second half, I went ice cold. I couldn’t hit the sky if I had aimed for it! No points in the third quarter; still only a couple buckets shy of the golden mark. Looking over at the bench, my backups were looking glum.

Coach was looking at me, hands on hips, as if to say, enough already. He instructed the other four on the floor to feed me the ball every time down court, no matter where I was. Short jumpers were just short, layups were rattling out, long range bombs scraped air. Nothing was working. The crowd, by this time, knew the playbook and every time my hands touched leather, the fans’ roar was deafening. I think by this time, the other team knew the playbook too because it seemed they gave me a wide berth. Hit it if you can…

Finally, two minutes left in the final stanza of my high school basketball experience, and I was fed the ball in the middle of the lane; I fumbled it but somehow regained control and flipped it immediately upward fearing the whole while for a traveling whistle that never came (I think even the refs knew the playbook by this time!). The ball circled the rim and…fell in. Everyone exploded as points nineteen and twenty went in the books—finally—and I was mugged by teammates there under the hoop, and even given some back slaps by the opposing team. The only one not sharing in the glee was the third stringer who was left with only 90 seconds or so to make good.

That’s my story. Fortunately, with a little help from my friends, I finished well. But a larger story was unfolding in my life including college, temptation, trials, paralysis and ministry. I still fumble the ball at times and hit back iron now and again, but I have others in my life who give a wide berth, “feed me the ball,” cheer me on and a Coach who leaves me in the game.

All of it is designed to make sure I finish well. I want to do that more than anything.

In For The Ride Of Our Life

The bones of Jesus and his wife and children have been found. There is the rattling of swords in Palestine. Islam’s Messiah may rise to power sometime this spring. Iran is only a year away from mass-producing nuclear warheads. Studies show our children are more narcissistic and bratty than ever (who knew?). Al Gore is putting Oscars on his mantel. Oh, and Michael Jackson wants to convert to Islam.

These are just today’s headlines!

To live in this modern world is akin to a haunted house ride at Disney World. There are moments of spookiness and fear. Weird organ music, shadows and gloom. At times something will jump out at you and even the ‘jockiest’ among us will experience racing of heart and catching of breath. And, of course, there will be displays that are downright laughable and corny. No matter what happens inside that house of terror, everyone in that swinging, twisting, turning car knows it will end in a flash of light and return to normalcy.

For the apprentice of Jesus (aka, disciple), we know this: there is Someone whose Hand is on the controls and He is watching out for us. We know also that the gloominess and uneasiness will give way to a curtain’s parting and with it, the infusion of Light and Glory. The Son, whom modern intellectuals claim is still in the ground, will flash onto the scene, very much alive, accompanied by His invading army of angels, and we along with Him, and bring to this world its Day of Reckoning.

Paul’s words, “none of these things move me,” are the mantra of the True Church. This stubborn little apostle walked heads-up straight into another Hall of Horror, facing off with incarnate terrors and otherworldly sorceries, and he did it with the resolute conviction that his journey was necessary for the protuberance of the Kingdom. He was not shaken, nor should we be, by what lies ahead. It is Who is walking with us and Who is waiting for us that should be our confidence. The One whose Hand is on all the levers is the One we walk with and journey toward. He’s moving us forward, on pre-laid tracks, as it were, ever nearer to our ultimate destiny: consummated union with the Lover of our Soul.

Hey, I just switched rides. We’ve jumped the tracks and now Murder Manor has become Lover’s Lane.

Ah, but not so fast. There is something that should move us, however. Imagine being locked into a car born by tracks through a gloomy castle of abject fright, uncertainty and unease. Murder, mayhem and devilish brooding abound. Now just imagine that, as the ride ends, you are not ushered into a harbor of light and serenaded by soothing music, but rather the tracks through your “ride” suddenly jolt you around a vicious curve where darkness no longer is primarily a sense but rather a physical enemy. Where the playthings of man’s inventions turn morosely into the sure and enduring tools of the trade of evil. Imagine being thrust downward, ever downward, into an abyss of eternal terror and torment. Forever. Never will there be the slowing down of mechanics and docking in a welcome station. Downward, ever downward, each clacking of wheel on metal taking you into a lower dungeon of blackened fire.

Not very amusing now, is it? You say, I thought this was Green Pastures? Where is the sound of babbling brook and breezes through the grasses? Consider: the picture just painted is the destiny of our loved ones without Christ. Right now, beloved, we are with them in the car on this sometimes scary ride through life and it is ours to go with them in these twists and turns, compelling them to come with us to the safe place of His Light and Life. Let us go. For them. For Him.

I fear, too often, that we are much like those who pass on the Haunted House ride and let our loved ones go there instead. Not my bag, we think to ourselves. They’ll somehow make it through, we reason. We watch them pay the fare, and with a wave and a whoosh, see them disappear behind a veil of dark. That being done, we hunch our shoulders, turn and search longingly for the line to “It’s A Small World After All.”

Persecution Alert

Christians jailed for walking near Olympic hotel
Persecution ramping up as 2008 Games in Beijing approach

Posted: February 22, 2007

1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

A Christian house church leader in China and his mother are facing a criminal prosecution that appears to be part of that government’s campaign to eliminate messages that are contrary to the official publicity releases as the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing approach.

According to reports from Voice of the Martyrs, a Christian organization that works in support of persecuted Christians around the world, house church leader Hua Huiqi has been formally arrested and his 76-year-old mother arrested a second time for the offense of walking near a construction site for a hotel being built in preparation for the Olympics.

VOM said Hua was arrested by the Beijing Public Security Bureau Chaoyang Branch and his mother arrested by Beijing Security Bureau Chongwen Branch. They had been injured in January when seven police officers attacked them while they were walking near the hotel construction site in Beijing.

“We are deeply concerned about Brother Hua and his elderly, ill mother. They are faithful Christians seeking only to serve the Lord in accordance with their conscience,” said Todd Nettleton, a spokesman for Voice of the Martyrs.

“We encourage Christians around the world to pray for their family, and we strongly urge the Chinese government to release them immediately,” he said.

China Aid Association officials told VOM that Hua has been very active in trying to help persecuted Christians and others who are oppressed by local officials who travel to Beijing trying to obtain justice from the central government.

He and his mother were attacked, and while on the ground, kicked. Then later they were taken to a police station for questioning, according to reports. “When Hua asked the police to release his sick mother and explain the legal ground for the detention, he was beaten repeatedly. While the temperature in Beijing was in the 20s, cold water was poured on him. He was later taken to a detention center,” the organization said.

“The Chinese government says they ensure freedom of religion, but this case clearly shows the truth,” Nettleton said. Police from the Olympic Sports Stadium Police Station also threatened to arrest Hua’s brother, officials reported.

Authorities in China told CAA that Hua was under criminal detention on the charge of “intervening public affair,” essentially damaging public and private property at the construction site.

“The charge against Brother Hua is totally baseless and it’s clearly … revenge to Hua’s Christian ministry to the oppressed,” said Bob Fu, who works with Hua. “Hua’s case should be seen as a litmus test on whether China is sincere to improve its worsening human rights record before the 2008 Beijing Olympics.”

Co-workers told CAA that they believe the aggressive actions in the arrest of Hua and his mother could be because of instructions from high government officials to send a message to those who present a message during the Olympics that does not fit the government’s formal statements.

CAA said letters of concern can be sent to: Premier Wen Jiabao, PRC, PO Box 1741, The State Council, Beijing, PRC (zip code 100017). The telephone contact is: +86-10-66012399.

“The detention of innocent peaceful Christians like Mr. Hua and his mom is certainly contradictory to the Chinese government’s human rights commitment for 2008 Beijing Olympics,” said Fu.

A number of human rights organizations – both faith-based and secular – have raised concerns about China’s human rights record, and its preparations for the 2008 Games, which were awarded to Beijing in a vote by the International Olympic Committee in 2001.

Human Rights Watch said Chinese police have cracked down on “subversive Internet users” who have been censored in their efforts to post information that contradicts the government’s public relations statements.

“Chinese authorities … reinforced repression against Internet users, Tibetans, members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, foreign scholars, the Muslim Uigur minority, democrats, foreign journalists and delinquents, all ‘in the name of the Chinese Olympics,’” the organization said.

There are estimates several thousand Chinese are executed each year for their “crimes.” WND recently reported on an assessment of China’s human rights situation that alleges the government keeps members of the Falun Gong religious sect in detention camps, and then executes them as their organs are needed for that nation’s transplant industry.

Also, at the current time, hundreds of thousands of Chinese are being evicted from their homes just so that the redevelopment projects in preparation for the Games can continue, the HRC said.

“The IOC has … invested the Chinese regime with a task it will carry out zealously: host safe Olympics. This means arrests of dissidents, social ‘cleansing,’ and censorship against ‘critical’ elements…,” the group said.

“The Olympic movement was discredited in 1936, when it allowed the Nazis to make the Games a spectacle to glorify the Third Reich. In 1980, in Moscow, the IOC suffered a terrible defeat when more than 50 countries boycotted the Olympics…,” the group said. The 2008 Games should not be allowed to advance the restrictions China imposes, it said.

VOM is a non-profit, interdenominational ministry working worldwide to help Christians who are persecuted for their faith, and to educate the world about that persecution. Its headquarters are in Bartlesville, Okla., and it has 30 affiliated international offices.

It was launched by the late Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, who started smuggling Russian Gospels into Russia in 1947, just months before Richard was abducted and imprisoned in Romania where he was tortured for his refusal to recant Christianity.

He eventually was released in 1964 and the next year he testified about the persecution of Christians before the U.S. Senate’s Internal Security Subcommittee, stripping to the waist to show the deep torture wound scars on his body.

The group that later was renamed The Voice of the Martyrs was organized in 1967, when his book, “Tortured for Christ,” was released.

A Titanic Tale

Guess we should all crawl back into our beds and wait for the world to end…(he said with tongue resolutely placed on inside of right cheek)…

NEW FILM CLAIMS JESUS DIDN’T RISE FROM THE DEAD, BODY HAS BEEN FOUND: But Israeli archeologist who found tomb says the film is nonsense

“Brace yourself. James Cameron, the man who brought you The Titanic is back with another blockbuster. This time, the ship he’s sinking is Christianity. In a new documentary, Producer Cameron and his director, Simcha Jacobovici, make the starting claim that Jesus wasn’t resurrected — the cornerstone of Christian faith — and that his burial cave was discovered near Jerusalem. And, get this, Jesus sired a son with Mary Magdelene. No, it’s not a re-make of The Da Vinci Codes. It’s supposed to be true.”….so begins a controversial story this weekend by Time magazine’s Jerusalem bureau chief Tim McGirk…..Cameron is set to unveil his heretical claims in a press conference Monday…..but now the Israeli archeologist who actually discovered the ancient burial caves 27 years ago says there is absolutely no proof to Cameron’s outlandish claims and that Cameron and his team are merely trying to profit by attacking a central tenet of the Christian faith that Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day and that His body has never been discovered….“The claim that the burial site has been found is not based on any proof, and is only an attempt to sell,” says Israeli archeologist Professor Amos Kloner…..reports Ynetnews — an Israeli news site — “a similar film was released 11 years ago, and [Kloner] said that this current film was merely a renewed effort to create controversy in the Christian world in order to make a bigger profit….says Kloner: “I refute all their claims and efforts to waken a renewed interest in the findings. With all due respect, they are not archeologists.”….reports Ynet: “According to [Kloner], the names inscribed on the coffins were very common in the Second Temple era, and as such were not sufficient proof that the cave was the burial site of Jesus’ family.”

Source–Joel Rosenberg’s website

Resolved, To Live...

One of the more syncopated and fun songs out of the Baptist hymnal growing up was a ditty called, “I Am Resolved”. I always loved singing the bass line with its moving parts and echoes. Fun stuff. The first verse and chorus goes like this:

I am resolved no longer to linger
Charmed by the world’s delights
Things that are higher, things that are nobler
These have allured my sight!

I will hasten to him
Hasten so glad and free (Bass—me—oohh, sing it: Hasten so glad and free!)
Jesus, greatest, highest
I will come to Thee!*

One hundred and fifty years before that song pealed forth from the lungs of robust Baptists, Jonathan Edwards penned his own treatise of resolutions, a list of 70 things he was resolved to lay down, take up, and set forth to do**. These Resolutions were a dedication of himself to God—a giving up of himself, his rights and all that he had. Mr. Edwards went over this list each week with the Lord, allowing the Spirit to take inventory of his heart. Here are just a few:

LIVE A PURPOSEFUL LIFE

RESOLVED, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, but what tends to the glory of God
RESOLVED, never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.

LIVE A GROWING LIFE

RESOLVED, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find…myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.
RESOLVED, to strive every week to be brought higher (spiritually), and to a higher exercise of grace, than I was the week before.

LIVE AN EXAMINED LIFE

RESOLVED, to inquire every night, as I am going to bed, wherein I have been negligent—what sin I have committed—; also, at the end of every week, month, and year.
RESOLVED, to examine carefully, and constantly, what that one thing in me is, which causes me in the least to doubt of the love of God; and to direct all my forces against it.

LIVE A HUMBLE LIFE

RESOLVED, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings, as others.
RESOLVED,…all my life long, with the greatest openness of which I am capable, to declare my ways to God, and lay open my soul to him: all my sins, temptations, difficulties, sorrows, fears, hopes, desires, and every thing, and every circumstance.

LIVE A HOLY LIFE

RESOLVED, in narrations, never to speak any thing but the pure and simple [truth].
RESOLVED, never to give over, nor in the least to slacken, my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be.

LIVE A CONSECRATED LIFE

RESOLVED, frequently to renew the dedication of myself to God.
RESOLVED, never, henceforward, till I die, to act as if I were any way my own, but entirely and altogether God’s.

LIVE IN LOVE

RESOLVED, never to do anything out of revenge.
RESOLVED, never to speak evil of anyone, so that it shall tend to his dishonor…
RESOLVED, to do always what I can toward making, maintaining and preserving peace.

LIVE IN LIGHT OF ETERNITY

RESOLVED, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.
RESOLVED, [that] I will act so, as I think I shall judge would have been best…when I come into the future world.

*entire hymn found here.
**for all 70 “Resolutions for Godly Living,” visit Nancy Leigh DeMoss’ website. Thanks to Life Actions Ministry’s “HeartCry: A Journal on Revival and Spiritual Awakening” for providing this piece (Issue 37: Winter 2007, pp59-61)

The River Is Here

Please note the date of the following article and the media that reported it. This did not happen 150 years ago, but only months ago and yet it has the “feel” of some revivals I have read about. At least the leading edge of one. God is giving grace to our land and answering the cries of a faithful remnant of intercessors by sending seasons of refreshing to many who are thirsting for Him and turning from that which is lifeless and of this world. Change us, Lord. May we not settle for being stirred only.

We have preached and settled for a humanistic “gospel” that would make us the recipient; the end-all, be-all, the center, measure and focus. A gospel that makes it all about us (God forbid). A gospel that makes us long for heaven rather than Him. No, beloved, it is all for the glory of Christ Jesus! He is the eternal Prize! He is Lord above all lords and King over all kings. Before the Lord, all of man’s kingdoms crumble to dust and are blown away. His River is Life and everything it touches will live!*

“THOUSANDS TURN OUT for REVIVAL, RIVER BAPTISMS”

by Susan Reinhardt,

-Asheville Citizen-Times, Sept 11, 2006.

CANE RIVER

Diane and John O’Shields of Burnsville were first in line and had more than one reason for getting wet in what some revival officials say was North Carolina’s largest river baptism. The baptism came as the faithful stretched into six weeks what was conceived as a two-week Cane River Tent Revival led by the Rev. Ralph Sexton Jr., of the ministry by the same name. No one in this small idyllic Yancey County town just northeast of Asheville has ever seen such a sight

Crowds swelled on each side of the riverbank. Wearing a black pantsuit and pearl earrings, she wiped tears from her eyes as she waved at watching loved ones. She and her husband held hands, closed their eyes and mouths and briefly disappeared under the water. The couple, married for 21 years, decided let this chance in the water with a reverend, the presence of God and countless witnesses work double-duty. “It’s our Baptism and wedding at the same time,” she said, her dress soaked and her face salted with tears. “We weren’t married in a church, so this is our marriage ceremony, too.” Theirs was just one among of the hundreds of stories and reasons people had for wandering into the waters, wetting their Sunday best or blue jeans. Dee-Dee Carver said the devil had hold of her the past two years. It’s not that she sinned or carried on wildly, she said. She’d just turned her back on God.

“The past five years,” she said, her face going from glowing to pained, “I’ve been dealing with a rebellious son.” She said he was into drugs and trouble and she needed the Lord’s strength to see her through. She’s been a Christian for years. But like many who gathered every night for six weeks at revival, she needed a fix

“I’ve been coming every night I can,” the 51-year-old Madison County woman said. “I come here and feel that sweet, sweet spirit.

I think it’s God’s way of saying, ‘I still love you.’”

MORE than 4,000 a NIGHT

Sexton began this revival in a cornfield six weeks ago with nearly 30 area pastors and churches who came together for a single cause: healing, soothing, saving and bringing God into troubled personal lives and into a world in a state of unrest and war. It started July 31 and was supposed to end two weeks later, but people kept coming, clogging roads and bringing the need for fire trucks and helicopters.

Sexton said he is humbled and encouraged by what he’s seen in the cornfields owned by John Young, who pastors baptized Sunday afternoon. “I’ve had opportunities in the past to be involved in area-wide meetings,” he said. “But this exceeds all expectations.” Asked why some nights more than 4,000 would show up, including teenagers, Sexton credited the Lord and the times we live in. “In our communities, there seems to be a hunger to return to basic moral and faith values,” he said. “We have an unsettled world. Every continent has a madman and every country is asking for peace and safety and we’re finding none…”

*Ezekiel 47:9

Today’s post comes from David Fairchild’s website found here. Interesting stuff. Incidentally, Rodney Stark, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington and raised a Lutheran, says of himself, “I’ve never been an atheist. Atheism is an active faith; it says, ‘I believe there is no God.’ But I don’t know what I believe. I was brought up a Lutheran in Jamestown, North Dakota. I have trouble with faith. I’m not proud of this. I don’t think it makes me an intellectual. I would believe if I could, and I may be able to before it’s over. I would welcome that.“* (emphasis mine)

10 Marks of the Early Church

Rodney Stark and other sociologists tell us there were 10 values of early Christians that stood in stark (no pun intended) contrast to the pluralistic pagan culture of Rome. Let’s prayerfully think through these values and match them to the witness of our own churches. Do we see the city existing for us or do we see our church and our lives existing for the city?

1. They refused to attend blood thirsty entertainment. They wouldn’t go to gladiatorial events because they believed it defiled humans who were created in the image of God.

2. This made them appear to be anti-social. Tertullian and Augustine both write about these events in a negative light.

3. They did not serve in the military to support Caesar’s wars of conquest, which made them appear weak.

4. They were against abortion and infanticide. In this culture, both were considered acceptable. To throw your baby out on the dung heap if you didn’t want it was not taboo.

5. They empowered women by showing their value and dignity in places of learning and service which had previously been exclusively for men. Christians held women in high regard and treasured them rather than viewing them as just a step above expendable children and servants.

6. They were against sex outside of marriage. This fidelity was considered odd and against culture. Sex was viewed as nothing more than a desire like eating or sleeping. Christians held a high view of the bed and kept it pure and would not engage in sex outside of marriage.

7. They were against homosexual relationships. This was odd in a time when same sex practice was not frowned upon.

8. They were exceptionally generous with their resources. They shared what they had with one another and welcomed others in with a hospitality that was unparalleled. They were radically for the poor. In a time when the poor and downtrodden were viewed as getting what they deserved, they were aggressively committed to loving and serving people in the margins of society.

9. They mixed races and social classes in ways that were unseen in their gatherings, and for it they were considered scandalous.

10. They believed only Christ was the way to salvation. This was in a time when everyone had a god and could believe something entirely different and it was totally acceptable to be polytheists and pluralistic. Christians dared claim that Jesus was the only way and refused to bend to other gods.

Our city has yet to see a group of people that hold these practices simultaneously.

If we held the values 1-Refused bloodthirsty sports, 2-Refused militarism, 4-Empowered women, 9-Mixed races and classes, and 10-Were radically for the poor, we would be considered liberal by conservative ideology.

If we held to values 3-Were against abortion, 5-Forbid sex outside of marriage, 6-Forbid same-sex practice, and 10-Insisted that Jesus was the only way for salvation we would be labeled conservative by liberal ideology.

We don’t fit into the relativistic landscape of our time, nor rugged individualism or traditional hierarchical legalism. We simply don’t fit into current categories. We don’t fit neatly into conservative or liberal categories. This is because we are resident aliens.

Whenever Christians pick up the values of the Gospel and begin living them out in our city we are on the one hand vilified for our values and at the same time oddly attractive in ways that often confound our most vocal opponents. If we experience neither vilification nor attraction what qualities of our life are missing which mark Kingdom citizens through history?

*for entire interview with Rodney Stark, click here.

The Deeper Life

Today begins our fellowship community’s “40 Days of Prayer and Fasting”. It is our church leadership’s desire to lead our fellowship “out into the deeper waters” of communion with the Lord and fully come under His reign and authority. A template for this season of asking, seeking and knocking[1] would be the forty days and nights Moses spent before the Presence, during which He passionately asked the Lord on the behalf of the “church in the wilderness” to go before them[2]. In fact, Moses did not mince words in expressing his inability to lead His people unless their God led the way.

This is what we are saying, Lord: if You don’t, it won’t. We are not able to go outside the camp[3], out to You, unless You call and equip us. This is our desire, Lord, that You distinguish us with the stain of Your glory. Take us into the deeper waters of loving You[4], the deeper waters of carrying about in our lives the dying of the Lord Jesus[5] and the deeper waters of true community by the laying down our lives for one another[6].

What better way to commence our journey than to hark back to this aged yet timeless cry of the panting heart as expressed by our Puritan brothers…

The Deeps

Lord Jesus, give me a deeper repentance, a horror of sin, a dread of its approach. Help me chastely to flee it and jealously to resolve that my heart shall be Thine alone.

Give me a deeper trust, that I may lose myself to find myself in Thee, the ground of my rest, the spring of my being. Give me a deeper knowledge of Thyself as Savior, Master, Lord, and King. Give me deeper power in private prayer, more sweetness in Thy Word, more steadfast grip on its truth. Give me deeper holiness in speech, thought, action, and let me not seek moral virtue apart from Thee.

Plough deep in me, great Lord, heavenly husbandman, that my being may be a tilled field, the roots of grace spreading far and wide, until Thou alone art seen in me, Thy beauty golden like summer harvest, Thy fruitfulness as autumn plenty.

I have no master but Thee, no law but Thy will, no delight but Thyself, no wealth but that Thou givest, no good but that Thou blessest, no peace but that Thou bestowest. I am nothing but that Thou makest me. I have nothing but that I receive from Thee. I can be nothing but that grace adorns me. Quarry me deep, dear Lord, and then fill me to overflowing with living water.

–From “The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions”
Compiled by Arthur Bennett

You can find the rest of the prayers here

[1] Matthew 7:7

[2] Exodus 33:15,16

[3] Hebrews 13:13

[4] John 17:26

[5] 2 Corinthians 4:10

[6] 1 John 3:16

Divine Pursuer

[God] is not proud…He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him.

CS Lewis-The Problem of Pain

He will have us. Isn’t that marvelous?

At dinner tonight, my wife and I bumped into and chatted with a young lady who attends our fellowship each week. She told us about a Bible study she and her husband are looking forward to participating in, called (if memory serves) “The Furious Pursuit.” I don’t know much about the study but I know I like the title; I think I like it even more knowing, as she explained, it is not about our pursuit of God, but rather His pursuit of us. Evidently it’s about the Lord’s stubborn love for the objects of His affection.

A song I’ve been known to hum in my quiet time with God (because I don’t always recall all the lyrics) is “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go.” It was penned by George Matheson, and while there are differing stories as to the occasion and backstory of its writing, most at least agree that the hymn was, as he put it, the “fruit of pain.”

Mr. Matheson was born with failing sight and by the time he was 17, had nearly succumbed to blindness. He was engaged to a fair young lady at the time but because of the doctor’s grim prognosis of the irreversibility of his blindness, decided she could not marry a man with such a permanent defect. She broke off the engagement and thus broke George’s heart.

He did go on to earn his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees and pastored a church of 1500 members in Scotland. His sister stayed with him and cared for him throughout the years but when she fell in love with a suitor and married, the knife of pain cut two ways in George’s heart. It brought back the memory of love lost twenty years afore and added to it was the realization that his personal caregiver was leaving him and with her all his security and comfort.

As the story goes, George sat down and penned the words to this emotive hymn in a scant five minutes! From its lyrics we can safely deduce that Mr. Matheson did learn in time of the Lord’s relentless love for him and was securely fastened in that Love until his death in 1899. While the third stanza is a personal favorite, I feel I must comment on the last. Just today I reconnected with a brother who was born with an eye disease that has slowly eaten away his eyes. The disease is so rare, he and he alone has been the subject of a study written in the Journal of Medicine. This was a source of great pain and humiliation in his younger years and, as he tells it, caused him to go through life with his head down. Today he calls his Lord quite literally the “lifter of his head” because He has won my friend through His relentless, furious pursuit. Now my brother looks you square in the eye even though his right eye is gone and his left is clouded over. How could you not hold your head high when you have looked full into the Face of such Love?

O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

Refuge

What Good Are Clothes?

I gleaned this from one of the blogsites I frequent and thought I would pass it along. It is quite good and gives an interesting perspective on why we don’t endorse going around naked in public—aside from the fact that some of us ought NEVER, and I do mean never, be naked!

You can also catch the entire sermon in transcript or audio format here:

By John Piper © DesiringGod.org

What does it mean that God clothed [Adam and Eve]? Was he confirming their hypocrisy? Was he aiding and abetting their pretense? If they were naked and shame-free before the Fall, and if they put on clothes to minimize their shame after the Fall, then what is God doing by clothing them even better than they can clothe themselves? I think the answer is that he is doing something with a negative message and something with a positive message.

Negatively, he is saying: You are not what you were and you are not what you ought to be. The chasm between what you are and what you ought to be is huge. Covering yourself with clothing is a right response to this—not to conceal it, but to confess it. Henceforth, you shall wear clothing, not to conceal that you are not what you should be, but to confess that you are not what you should be. One practical implication of this is that public nudity today is not a return to innocence but rebellion against moral reality. God ordains clothes to witness to the glory we have lost, and it is added rebellion to throw them off.

And for those who rebel in the other direction and make clothes themselves a means of power and prestige and attention getting, God’s answer is not a return to nudity but a return to simplicity (1 Timothy 2:9-10). Clothes are not meant to make people think about what is under them. Clothes are meant to direct attention to what is not under them: Arms and hands that serve others in the name of Christ, “beautiful” feet that carry the gospel to where it is needed, and the brightness of a face that has beheld the glory of Jesus.

With Apologies To Mark Richt...

Please forgive me, Mr. Richt.

Sandy dressed me this morning. And that is why I am sitting in this coffee shop with my chin down on my clavicle. You see, she bought me a turtleneck shirt last year and for the past twelve months it has hung untouched in my closet ever since. Not because I dislike turtlenecks. Au contraire. There is just something very evil and awkward about this particular shirt.

It has the logo of a Georgia Tech yellow jacket on the neck.

I know, I know. I was horrified too, but through prayer, running to the quiet place of safety and patronizing a Starbuck’s far from my community, I have made it through these hours. Barely. So far, so good, though. I have not had to endure any barroom-fight stares or pitiful looks. I feel like a traitor but I ask you: should I have been disobedient to my wife who laid the shirt out for me or loyal to the school up the interstate? (hint: goooooooo dawgs! woof! woof! woof!) Yeah, that’s the dilemma. I had to think for quite awhile on that. Yes, it is true that the followers of Jesus are far more authentic and devoted than those among the “fighting engineers” (who do they fight anyway?) but I gave in. Please don’t hate me.

Jesus is with me (I think), and I will live to fight another day. Meanwhile, if there are any GT alums out there needing a shirt with your school colors and “fierce” yellow jacket on it (why would you? They’re everywhere: clearance racks, thrift stores, etc.), I have one, slightly used, and cheap. Real cheap.

Pray for me. I am heading out the door now. I truly hope you hear from me again.

(Go Dawgs.)

He's Looking At You, Kid

You never know what you’ll find out there in blogosphere: some of it good, some bad. Chalk this one on the ‘good’ side:

God spoke the universe into existence. Everything is made for His glory, including us.

Something interesting a Christian friend shared with me this week. At the far edges of the universe, about as far as we can see, is the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51). It’s 23 million light years away. Here’s a photo from the Hubble telescope (this is actually what is seen inside the core of the galaxy–S.M.):

One of the tiniest, wee things we can see is laminin, a structure of polypeptide chains that are an integral part of holding nearly all animal tissue together. Here’s what it looks like:

A visual reminder that Jesus gave His life for us, and no matter where we go, there He is.

Thanks to Michael @ www.chasingthewind.net for sharing this post…

Sacred Cows and Goats

Once upon a time I was a college student at a strict fundamental Baptist university and on one particular evening in the Fall of 1978 I was actually even studying. Or trying to. Sitting at my desk beneath the stark glare of a flourescent bulb, I was tapping my pen on a spiral notebook. It dawned on me I was tapping in rhythm with a bass beat coming through the cinderblock wall from the other side. I leaned into the wall and listened more closely. No, it couldn’t be! Not at this college!

Rock music.

The ire rose within. In that defining moment, it was apparent that something must be done before the integrity of the school would be buried in a mudslide of evil. It was incumbent upon me to stand in the gap and defend her honor! So I threw on a robe and stuck my feet in some flip flops and marched next door. Their door was open and I sardonically observed the room was full of guys, so I entertained the thought of living to fight another day, but it was too late. I was already spotted.

“C’mon in!” Brad waved.

How could I? I would be complicit with evil! “No, thanks, but could you guys turn down the music? I’m trying to study. Better yet, turn it off.”

“Turn it off?” his big, brawny weightlifter roommate Jim was puzzled.

“Yeah. You know…we’re not supposed to listen to…”

“To what?” the room was beginning to turn on me real fast. I had gone this far. Might as well take it the distance.

“Rock music!”

The room erupted in raucous laughter. “Rock music? Rock music? You gotta be kidding! This is the Imperials. They’re a Christian group,” Brad informed me.

“But it’s got a beat. It’s wrong…” I pleaded for their souls. The mood of the room told me I would get no penitent sinners at the altar of invitation on this night. I wanted to crawl into a hole. Why couldn’t I have just reported them to the dorm supervisor? And here I was, a freshman, standing up to two seniors. Whatever got into me?

Balance that night against what happened to me just the other night. I was on the internet and came across a page endorsing a Christian book, a best-selling book, and when I saw the author’s name, I said to myself, “It couldn’t be…” Not Brad! Surely not…But as I investigated further, I discovered it was one and the same, and not only had my buddy Brad turned into an influential writer for church reformation but he was also the senior pastor of a church up north where 13,000 parishioners gathered each weekend for worship. It was the fastest growing church in the state!

I’ve considered jetting Brad an email, telling him I am sorry for my overzealous judgment on that fateful night long ago, that I’ve changed, that the Imperials are tame compared to what I listen to now, but since I’ve not written a book and my church averages below 200, he probably wouldn’t remember me. Or care. And maybe that’s a good thing. I’d just as soon have the memory of that Bay of Pigs incident forgotten forever.

Oops, too late. I just told you.

God Is Not Superman

“Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you and you will honor Me.”
(Psalm 50:15)

“For in the day of trouble, He will conceal me in His tabernacle; in the secret place of His tent He will hide me; He will lift me up on a rock.”
(Psalm 27:5)

“Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call; This I know, that God is for me.”
(Psalm 56:9)

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
(Psalm 46:1)

“I will never, never leave you; I will never, never, never forsake you.”
(Hebrews 13:5, literal Greek)

Timing is everything. And God, who knows no days and who is not bound by time, plots His entrance into our lives perfectly, revealing Himself precisely according to script. The verses above tell us that not only does He invest Himself “around” the time of our need but He is already positioned in the moment. He doesn’t “ballpark” it.

The Hebrew of “a very present help” in Psalm 46 tells us He is already on the scene. God is not Clark Kent with supersonic hearing who picks up on a Metropolis victim’s cry from his desk at the Daily Planet then dons a cape as Superman en route to the scene of the crime. He is there.

It’s not so much that He “shows up” as it is, He reveals His already fixed Presence in the bitter moment, the time of need. A marginal note in my Bible reads, He is “abundantly available for help in tight places.” This does not encourage some fellow believers in their times of travail. They demand a God who will head trouble off at the pass and cause it to miss them altogether. Theirs is a faith that needs the storm to be stilled in order to believe. Actually, theirs is a faith who wants clear skies and sunshine (I am not always immune to this either). But great faith, pleasing faith[1], is a faith that trusts in both the Father’s desire and ability to come through, no matter what.

Someone very close to us is a practical agnostic. They order their lives in such a way as to deem God non-existent, or if He is, He’s not at all interested in them, could care less, so why should they? Israel’s history shows ebbs and flows of the same worldview. At one time, they were the slaves of Egypt bearing up on shaky legs under a steel canopy of hate and abuse[2] —a four hundred and thirty year holocaust, mind you. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, lay dead in the sands of Egypt over that span and the workers in the pits had all but given up on the songs of the Homeland, ditties taught them by their forebears. The first hundred years the songs likely reflected home and the conviction it would be seen again. The second hundred years the songs probably turned more toward a hope of going there, the next hundred years they dwindled and dimmed to a minor key of hardship being their home, their fate, their inheritance. The last hundred years the songs were hopeless dirges, awaiting committal into the ground, hoarsely sung through cracked throats, over swollen tongues and through clenched teeth.

While Hell’s emperor taunted their pitiful cries of “Why, God? Where are You?” God was not moving; He was stationary. No, I don’t mean He was sitting aways off aloof from their toil and travail, engrossed in Other Things. The Lord had tabernacled Himself over His people, brooding over them as the Spirit brooded over the earth at the dawn of creation. In their day of trouble, even their very moment of abject misery, He was present. From our side of things, it looked like the Supreme Righter of All Wrongs was a few years too late. From our side, He can seem so cavalier.

When Lazarus died[3], Jesus came to pay His respects. Martha, one of the sisters of the deceased, was fighting bitterness real hard. She cleaned up what her mind was thinking and civilly remarked to Messiah, “If you had only been here sooner…”

Yeah, been there…

The Apostle Paul, in his inspired writings, revealed that Jesus came at the “fullness of time”[4], the right time, just on time, the perfect time. And when, pray tell, was that? Around 6 BC? How much of human history had already backlogged and how much sin stockpiled by then? Four thousand years? When was it that man got himself into trouble? Way back in the Garden[5] which begs the question, why didn’t Jesus show up and die for men’s sins then?

These are all normal, natural questions our faithless hearts ask. These are the questions of “this side” people, who fail to see both God’s immanence (nearness) and transcendence (almighty-ness, allness, otherness, distinctiveness). These are the rantings of futile arguments that collapse under the weight of the Creator Father’s great awesomeness and His awesome Love.

A number of years ago, I read Jerry Bridges’ book, Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts and discovered three things about my God. He is sovereign, meaning that He has the right to do whatever He wants. He is all-wise, meaning that He knows what He is doing the entire time He is doing it, and He is all-loving, meaning that whatever He does, He does with our best interest in mind.

That is a God I can follow, even out here in the shadowlands when the mile markers to Home get lost in the fog sometimes. No worry, I may have to cry out a “Peter Prayer” sometime[6] , but my voice doesn’t have to carry far. He is right beside me, in the nick of time, right on time.

---

[1] Hebrews 11:6

[2] Exodus 1-3

[3] John 11

[4] Galatians 4:4

[5] Genesis 3

[6] Matthew 14:30

Snapshots of Heaven

Let us go out to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.”
(Hebrews 13:13)

I hate having my picture taken. Maybe its the pounds (the camera adds ten, you know). Maybe the wheelchair is too, well…too. Perhaps it’s the contrast between me and just about anybody else in the photo. Pull out a camera at a party and I’m either looking for a place to hide or pretending its not there. I’ll bet if I don’t look at it, it won’t look at me. All kidding aside (was I?), there is one photograph I’m angling for. I’m living in such a way as to be captured in God’s lens and placed in His portfolio under the heading of “Kingdom Man.”

The fellowship of saints I have been called to pastor are considering together what we would look like as Kingdom People, as those living “outside the camp.” Think of it: an entire modern-day western church, going outside the camp. Together. At the risk of over dramatization, this Word has been akin to thunder on the summit of Sinai for us and the blow from a shofar, rallying us to mobilize and ready ourselves for something quite unlike anything we have ever known.

In the message of this past Sunday, I said whatever is out there, outside the camp, it involves dying. It involves laying down our lives. It looks like humility, not false piety. It means putting aside and walking away from. It involves separation. Hardship. Loneliness. Mourning and grieving. It can mean martyrdom. Then I paused and looked over the flock and said, “Who wants to go?” Despite the truthfulness of truth and intentional lack of “sweet by and by,” many hands went skyward.

Having considered this “outside the camp” metaphor for a few weeks now, we are getting a clearer picture of what it entails. But let me stop here for a moment. The picture we see coming into focus is just that. A picture. It is like we are looking in someone else’s photo album and we are not actually in any of the photographs. It’s our desire to not just look at glossies and wonder but to one day see ourselves in them as a people fully vested in the “Sermon on the Mount” lifestyle.

Perhaps we might look a lot like these guys…

A COMMUNITY OF THE BROKEN

“The mission organization Word Made Flesh is unusual in several respects. Founded 15 years ago, it is a young movement, with nearly all its 200 staff and volunteers well under 35 years old. Focused on serving Christ among the poorest of the poor, its staff are notable for the degree to which they move into the urban slums, red-light districts, and refugee camps where they are called to serve. They also work together in small intentional communities, a model that looks back to monasticism and forward to the quest for richer expressions of Christian community. Here, Word Made Flesh’s international executive director, Chris Heuertz, responds to our big question about global mission for 2007: What must we learn, and unlearn, to be agents of God’s mission in the world?

An essential Christian conviction is that the church is the community that anticipates and seeks to express the kingdom of God. To explain the healthy functioning of the church, the apostle Paul twice turned to the metaphor of a human body, equipped with many different parts, that working together could live out the life of its risen Lord, the head of the body, in a broken world.

But the body of Christ, far from being a healthy, functioning body with the capacity to respond to the needs of the world, is more like a child who is missing a limb. We are fragmented, divided, and ineffective at even simple tasks…

That has been the goal of Word Made Flesh (WMF). Our community can be found in the sewers of Eastern Europe meeting with children living on the streets, with former child soldiers in the refugee camps of West Africa, among victims of sex trafficking and children with aids throughout Asia, and in the shanty-towns and favelas of South America.

It’s often observed that there is among my generation a crisis in the theology and practice of mission. For many Christians today, mission can seem to be little more than sanctified tourism. Raised as opportunistic individuals, we bounce from one short-term experience to the next. We keep our options open and avoid committing to any one organization or set of relationships—so much so that many of us would rather work 20 hours a week pouring coffee than give our lives to helping secure safe drinking water for others.

The challenge for WMF is working with those who are intelligent yet doctrinally confused, lonely yet community-resistant, cause-driven yet commitment-averse, idealistic yet cynical, magnanimous yet suspicious, and, not least, over-educated yet deep in debt—and challenging them to establish community with and among the oppressed of the world.”

See the entire Christianity Today article by Christopher Heuertz here:

A Community of the Broken

The call is to go outside the “camp,” forsaking all that Christ longs to loose us from. There isn’t going to be much in the way of paparazzi out there but the Lord will have some great family pics for His own album!

I mean to be in one.

I Knew I Liked Portland

For those who know me well, I have been known to mention the name “Portland, Oregon” with a dreamy twinkle in my eye. My wife has gotten to where she simply sighs and rolls her big green ones after years of hearing about it. Enough with Portland, already. But I cannot shake the niggling in my mind, or spirit, as the case may more accurately be, that I am somehow tied to that city (“ooooh, Scott’s getting spooky on us…”) and that I may wind up there someday? Time will tell.

In the meantime, I came across some notes from a conference held in the City of Roses recently whose topic included a phenomenon called “City Reaching.” The plenary speakers were Tom White, of Frontline Ministries, and George Otis, Jr. Some years back, Mr. Otis produced a groundbreaking video called “Transformations” (1999) in which he and his team at the Sentinel Group identified four international cities that had undergone true sustained spiritual transformation. Within a few years, that number had quadrupled affording a second documentary (“Transformations II”) and now the number has multiplied to include 250 cities worldwide* that have been touched by a sustained move of God to transformation.

During said conference, known as the City Impact Roundtable for the Pacific Northwest, Tom White gave what is seen as the criterion for what amounts to a city’s “transformation” and these are as follows:

• an increase in holy living
• spontaneous conversion growth in churches (not transfer growth!)
• decrease of crime
• increase of social justice
• unity in the body of Christ and the healing of denominational breaches
• sustainable evidence
• increased generosity
• fully engaged brothers and sisters serving the Lord together
• passion
• redeeming of the arts

Of course, the precursor to all of this is a band of intercessors in each city coming together with a mutual yearning for a move of God during a heightened and sustained atmosphere of prayer. Mr. Otis wisely said,

“It won’t happen until there is a deep, deep, deep hunger for the coming of the Holy Spirit. In these cities, people became desperate for spiritual awakening. The greatest breakthrough today is where the Spirit of God comes down and attaches Himself to the broken and humble. It’s where God goes when He wants pleasure.” (emphasis mine)

Otis has also documented about 550 “salty places” in the world, cities that are rife with the true marks and beginnings of revival. God is supernaturally calling out these cities—and the list is growing exponentially—to stimulate thirst for God in the earth. What will stimulate this thirst? When the people of God become family and no longer passing acquaintances.

All this has me twitching in my wheelchair, antsy and cartwheeling for a move of God in my city. I know I would like Portland but I LOOOOVE Atlanta and the Lord is raising up intercessors within her and their collective cry is for the Lord to answer His own prayer in John 17 that His people “be one.” Every move of God in the New Testament era, starting with Pentecost, has always begun with unity and a prayer movement. Even from my limited vantage point I see that happening and it stirs me, but there is a fair ways to go.

As with anything that smacks with the name of Christ, there is certainly some controversy. Counterfeit revivals, some call it. Reconstructionism, others label it. Ecumenicism, voices rise in protest. And I’m sure some of this is founded. Some are uncomfortable with the perceived shift of the “City Reachers” from the individual’s responsibility as sinful beings before God to it becoming more of a city or regional issue. I don’t know. I just know that I have never in my life experienced anything close to the Welsh Revivals, or the Great Awakening or the Wesleyan movement, the Hebrides Revival, the Korean Pentecost or the Cane Ridge Revivals…

And, if memory serves, each of those moves of God were the answer to a handful of humble intercessors’ cry for a holy visitation. And most, if not all, had a counterfeit laid alongside them by the enemy, sparking divisions and quarrels. Are we so foolish not to realize that when God moves, satan counter-moves? I’m just dumb enough to believe that a small clutch of intercessors asking for God to come on their city will not be disappointed. In Portland. In Atlanta. Wherever.

But, to be completely honest, and selfish as this sounds, I’m still praying that God will utterly and completely transform me. Anyone else with me? I gotta get my eyes off of everybody else! There’s a holy work I’m wanting to see finished in me. And if you feel the same about you, and if so-and-so does the same, and on down the line, well sir, we’ve got ourselves the beginnings of a sure enough transformation.

“The Lord, He is mighty, and we do not know Him.”
(Job 36:26)

*cities in Colombia, Uganda, Kenya, Canada, and even California, for instance

Make Way For The King!

Oh, He is coming all right…the Gospel is covering the earth and it’s all being amped up for His Return…“Open wide you gates, that the King of Glory may come in!” (Psalm 24:9)

The following is a report from Christian writer of best-selling fiction and journalist Joel C. Rosenberg.* Please take care to read this in its entirety. You will be both blessed and amazed at the power of the Lord that is sweeping the Muslim world:

“More Muslims converted to faith in Jesus Christ over the past decade than at any other time in human history. A spiritual revolution is under way throughout North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia (”10/40″ window, by the way–S.M.). As a result, a record number of ex-Muslims are celebrating Christmas this year, despite intense persecutions, assassinations and widespread church bombings.

IRAQ:

More than 5,000 new Muslim converts to Christianity have been identified since the end of major combat operations, with 14 new churches opened in Baghdad, and dozens of new churches opened in Kurdistan, some of which have 500 to 800 members. Also, more than 1 million Bibles shipped into the country since 2003, and pastors report Iraquis are snatching them up so fast they constantly need more Bibles.

EGYPT:

Some reports say 1 million Egyptians have trusted Christ over the past decade or so. The Egyptian Bible Society told me they used to sell about 3000 copies of the JESUS film a year in the early 1990s. But last year they sold 600,000 copies, plus 750,000 copies of the Bible on tape (in Arabic) and about a half million copies of the Arabic New Testament. “Egyptians are increasingly hungry for God’s Word,” an Egyptian Christian leader told me. Last Christmas, I had the privilege of visiting the largest Christian congregation in the Middle East, which meets in an enormous cave on the outskirts of Cairo. Some 10,000 believers worship there every weekend…

AFGHANISTAN:

Only 17 Muslim converts to Christianity before 9/11/01, but now more than 10,000. Dozens of baptisms every week.

KAZAKSTAN:

Only 3 known Christians in 1990, but now more than 15,000.

UZBEKISTAN:

NO known Christians in 1990, but now more than 30,000.

SUDAN:

More than 1 million Sudanese have converted to Christianity just since 2000, and some 5 million have become Christians since the early 1990s, despite a radical Islamic regime and an ongoing genocide that has killed more than 200,000. Seminaries are being held in caves to train pastors to shepherd the huge numbers of people coming to Christ. Why such a dramatic spiritual awakening? “People have seen real Islam, and they want Jesus instead,” one Sudanese evangelical leader told me.

IRAN:

In 1979 there were only 500 known Muslim converts to Christianity, but today Iranian pastors and evangelical leaders tell me there are more than 1 million Iranian believers in Jesus Christ, most of whom meet in underground house churches.

In December 2001, Sheik Ahmad al Qataani, a leading Saudi cleric, appeared on a live interview on Al-Jazeera satellite television to confirm that, sure enough, Muslims were turning to Jesus in alarming numbers. “In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity,” al Qataani warned. “Every day, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Every year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity.”

Stunned, the interviewer interrupted the cleric. “Hold on! Let me clarify. Do we have six million converting from Islam to Christianity?” Al Qataani repeated his assertion. “Every year,” the cleric confirmed, adding, “a tragedy has happened.”

One of the most dramatic developments is that many Muslims—including Shiites in Iran and Iraq—are seeing dreams and visions of Jesus and thus coming into churches explaining that they have already converted and now need a Bible and guidance on how to follow Jesus…This is the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. The Hebrew prophet Joel told us that, “in the last days, I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on My servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days…And everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved.” (Joel 2:28-32)

BOTTOM LINE:

It’s not being reported by the mainstream media, but the God of the Bible is moving powerfully and dramatically throughout the Muslim world. The number of Arab and Iranian Christians is surging despite wars, rumors of wars and terrible persecution.”

*taken from Joel C. Rosenberg’s book Epicenter and from joelrosenberg.blogspot.com

Seven Ways To Praise Him

Flecks of snow danced on the early morning sky, soon giving way to brief showers of the white stuff. The crystalline ballet was gloriously unusual for Atlanta and even more so in early February. My wife and I sat quietly in our van, parked in a hospital parking garage. I was due inside at five a.m. but couldn’t make myself shut off the engine. The very act of moving toward the door was in itself an act of betrayal to myself.

And so I stole some moments, delaying the inevitable, watching the playful antics of the tiny white visitors through a defrosted window. Sandy sat very still beside me, and I know she was silently bracing herself for the long weeks ahead in which she would have to do the juggling act of all time: pulling double duty of an excessively demanding lifestyle. I, on the other hand, was facing bed duty. For twelve weeks. Bless my heart, I wasn’t thinking of the circus act Sandy would be forced to pull off. I was sinking ever deeper, wrapped in my own trial of dual surgeries, requiring a potentially three-month stay in the hospital I was now looking at.

Sandy touched my hand reassuringly but said not a word. That tender act was all it took to release a welling of tears to my eyes. A single tear escaped from the forming pool and traced a line down my cheek. In my heart I was crying, “Lord, is there no other way?” The leaden sky was silent. No. This was my journey—and my wife’s—and since there was no way around it, I collected myself, sighed deeply and shut off the engine. It was time. Together we headed toward the garage elevator that would take me to my home away from home and church for the next dozen weeks.

That was a year ago today. Yes, I had surgery; two of them, in fact. But the Lord did an amazing thing (what else?): He cut the time in half and by the time I got home six weeks and some change later, I was in the best shape I had been in for a very long time. Every pressure wound on my body was healed and for the first time in fifteen years, I was wound-free and whole. I went in with two ginormous wounds on each hip and several other smaller ones–seven in all–and came home with none.

Dr. Simon, you are a marvel. A flat-out, modern-day wizard of medicine. Although you do not (yet) know Jesus, I want you to know that He guided your hands in surgery and used you to bring healing to my body. It was a necessary time for me, an exile of sorts, but not nearly the incarceratory trial it could have been, chiefly because of your artistry with a scalpel.

Sandy, my Sandy. You did it. You proved once again you only live to lay down your life for the ones you love. I’ll always remember fondly the “bridge”. Do you recall? Of course you do. It was the most bittersweet place on the planet for us. That was our special good-night place and while no one has any idea what that means, we do. And that’s enough. Tonight, as I look back across time to that time in our life, I am glad we no longer have to settle for a good-night place, a parting place. I know full well I have taken a lot out of you and my ordeals have taken their toll but no one has ever sacrificed themselves for me the way you have. God has an uncanny knack of remembering every little thing and be assured He has your life bookmarked.

My son. You were caught in a sieve and we have spent the year watching God separate the chaff of your life from the man God has purposed you to be. We believe in you. We believe God is healing the hurt of your heart and is looming large in the secret place He is holding for you to dwell in. We will make it through this. Through. Isn’t that a marvelous word? I have never been more proud of you than I am today as I see you beginning to fight the enemy and submit to the path of Life. You will one day be a troubler and upsetter of the kingdom of darkness and Christ the King will use you to set many captives free.

My Father, You remember when I asked You to “put Your ’seven’ on my seven”? I wanted to be whole and since that Divine number captures the essence of completion and wholeness, it was all my childlike faith could form words for. Of course it was divine intervention without the amanuensis of a hospital I was after, but, as with everything else You put Your attention to, it was right. So right, in fact, that I can look back today and say that those were some of the most satisfying days of my life. You numbered my days and sat by my bedside every moment. You were my joy and desire and I love you forever!

Job said, “He performs what is appointed for me; and many such decrees are with Him.”* The word ‘performs’ is a word that means I am safe within His artisan Hands, knowing that He is doing what is necessary–and for my good–and He will not leave the work unfininshed. His work involves deconstructing Scott and crafting the fullness of Christ in me. Thank you for your ’seven’ in my Life, Lord. That number is stamped all over me and I welcome the many more ’sevens’ to come.

This morning, no flecks of snow. I’m not in an idling van in a parking deck downtown but safe and snug in my own bed. All is sunshine, cheer and field after field of freedom to roam and dance at Your pleasure. And so I’ll dance…

*Job 23:14