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Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Peru

So a long day of travel begins by getting out of bed on new years eve at 3:00AM. The team and I will land in Lima, Peru at 10:50PM if all goes as planned. Yea right. I'll just be happy if all the luggage makes it with us.

And it will all be worth it. We'll do some construction work at Hannah's Home and Orphanage. I have a feeling the Christmas parties we are hosting will be the highlight. We expect to have over 1,000 kids and will play games, face paint and just have fun. Then a little dancing and singing anda skit to share the gospel message. All hosted by local churches. So we have this privilege to not only tell 1,000 kids about Jesus, we'll see the international church at work and lift them up to their local neighborhoods.

On my first trip down to Peru I thought I was taking Jesus to a third world country. But I discovered He was already there.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

THE Birth

We’ve been talking a lot about the birth of Jesus in Church the last few weeks. How the uncreated one came to be a man. The one who set the sun’s distance and moon’s gravitational pull and the earth’s orbit and our atmosphere’s oxygen concentration just so as to perfectly sustain life.

• but was this God born in a manger or a cattle feeding trough?

• was he wrapped in swaddling clothes or filthy rags from the barn floor?

• did the shepherds find a cooing, smiling baby or a screaming, freezing newborn?

• who cut God’s umbilical cord and with what?

• if Joseph was catching the Savior of the world who was holding Mary’s hand and moping sweat from her brow as she screamed from labor pains?

Sounds to me like the uncreated one chose to enter our mess in a mess. But as author Rick McKinley puts it…….this beautiful mess.

Take a few moments today and read the Christmas Story. It's in Luke 2:1-20and Revelation 12.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Genealogies Contradictive; Bible Declared Invalid

Just kidding.

But read Matthew 1 and Luke 3. These texts are giving the genealogy of Jesus. Notice they completely contradict each other in the generations between Jesus and David.

Interesting. I wanted to know more so I did a little research. I would encourage you to do the same but here is a link to an explanation that makes a lot of sense, I believe.

http://cgg.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Library.sr/CT/BQA/k/184/Why-Does-Jesus-Have-Two-Different-Genealogies-Matthew-11-16;-Luke-323-38.htm

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Who is my neighbor?

I had an interesting conversation last week sparked by my family's upcoming mission trip to Peru. A family member was asking my wife and I questions about it and I appreciated her honesty in the middle of it. She said she thinks we should help people in our country before others. She even stated that she refuses to give to any offerings at church that support foreign missions. I told her I understood that opinion but deep down I was saddened. That thinking seems to represent much of the United States. And while I do think I am to care for my family and neighborhood and co-workers and city, I believe the Bible raises the benchmark.

Read Revelation 5. Note the song being sung in verse 9: "....and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation."
This is a scene in heaven where there are apparently a lot of diverse people. So who is my neighbor?

Read Matthew 28: 16-20. Jesus instructs his followers to go and make disciples of all nations.
So who is my neighbor?

Read Genesis 12:1-3. Abraham is going to be made into a great nation (Israel). And God tells him that he will be blessed and he will be a blessing and all peoples on earth will be blessed through him. He is going to be blessed, not to kick back and enjoy it and keep it to himself and his nations, but to bless others. Blessed to be a blessing. So who is my neighbor?

And now the big one. Read Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10: 25-37. Notice the very question of "who is my neighbor?" is asked by an expert in Jewish law in this story. But for the story that Jesus tells to make any sense you must understand who a Samaritan was. They were second class citizens. Jews of Jesus' day would not associate with them. Remember the Israel that Abraham was the father of? Well at one point in history they separated into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The kingdom or nation of Israel left Jerusalem and set up shop in............Samaria. So Jesus tells a story to answer the question and uses a second class citizen as en example of being neighborly. So do you have an prejudices? I do. And I believe that if Jesus told us this story today, the one we hold prejudice against would be Jesus' example of a Good Samaritan:

....but an illegal alien, as he traveled, came where the man was......

....but a man with a turban on his head, as he traveled, came where the man was.....

....but homeless man, as he traveled, came where the man was......

....but a citizen of the state of Michigan...........okay there's no way anything good came out of ......oops, I was born in Michigan.

So who is my neighbor?

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

The Holy Bang

A few things I learned from the sermon at church this weekend:

The air we breath is 21% oxygen. Change that ratio just an little and..............we're dead.

The sun's distance from the earth is just right. A little farther away and................we freeze.

The sun's distance from the earth is just right. A little closer and.........................we're toast(ed).

Gravity is perfect. A little less and............................................we float away.

Gravity is perfect. A little more and.........................................we're crushed by our own weight.

Every cell in our body contains our complete DNA code.

So maybe the evidence of an expanding galaxy does support some sort of explosion. But that explains it all? I don't think so. I choose to believe that The Creator put it all together to work the way it does. That a baby made it all. Was there some sort of pyrotechnics involved? Maybe so. A holy bang of a start.

Friday, December 5, 2008

Doubt

Doubt will try to crash vision.

Repeatedly and continually.

Most of this will come from family and friends trying to talk sense into you.

And yet the God who created seas and stars and sex and selenium put on human flesh and was born in a feeding trough for livestock. And he was homeless. Try to make sense out of that.

Apprehension kills a spititual buzz.

Lord, give your people courage to go and do where you want us to. Make us an example of what YOU can do with a life commited to you. Help us follow through.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

The Purchase

Soooooo............I bought em (see previous post). And I could have gone to the self-serve checkout. But that would have felt like cheating. So I went to a real cashier.

She said: Will that be all?

I said: I dunno, does anything else go with em?

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

PDMMBT

Pastor Dave Made Me Buy Tampons

RiverTree Church Hartville has been collecting food for The Fish food pantry in Hartville. When the shelves were stocked there was one shelf that was empty: feminine hygiene products. So Pastor Dave told all the guys they had to go out this week and put aside their manhood for a moment and buy some. Want to join this group? Here are the steps:

1) Read Mark 5: 25-34. No really - don't read #2 yet. Go and read this passage in Mark.

2) Notice what Jesus does. He heals a woman who hasn't been touched for 12 years and hasn't been to church for six hundred twenty four (624) Sunday's (a woman who was bleeding in Jesus' day was unclean and not allowed in the temple). Jesus touches a nobody and shows her she is somebody.

3)Go buy a box of feminine hygiene products and take it to The Fish food panty or RiverTree Christian Church Hartville.