The Gospel In 4 Minutes

Hey everyone,

What an amazing time of year! There is just so much going on and so much to think about, but it’s all good. This weekend is a big weekend for gathering of course. Friday evening we are looking forward to a tremendous and thoughtful time together as we celebrate Good Friday and the Cross by which we are saved. Denis Clay is speaking that night but there are other special things about the evening too. And then this Sunday morning we’re doing Easter breakfast together and then we have a pretty big surprise for the Easter service.

So today I’m just going to post this link here. It’s an amazing video – The Gospel In 4 Minutes – produced by a ministry called Dare2Share. Have a watch and pass it on.

Here’s the link: 

The Gospel In 4 Minutes

That Sinking Feeling

Every once in a while you hear stuff in the news that is almost unthinkable. Earlier this month the ground opened up underneath the bedroom of thirty seven year old Jeff Bush while he slept in his bed in his home in Seffner, Florida. Just like that, Jeff was gone. Rescue workers were not even able to recover his body!

It was only days later when forty three year old Mark Mihal was playing golf with his three buddies at the Annbriar Golf Course in Illinois. They turned around and Mark was gone! Fortunately, his friends who could hear his moaning were able to pull Mark out of the eighteen foot deep sink hole that had suddenly swallowed him alive. He suffered a dislocated shoulder from the ordeal but testified later what it felt like to be falling and not knowing how far down he was going to go and then the feeling as the dirt began falling down over him. 

It’s hard to imagine anything much more terrifying really isn’t it. For sure, these are unusual events, (though sinkholes are apparently much more common than we might expect … in 2012, a 15-year-old girl died when her family's car fell into a sinkhole in Utah) but they do give credence to that old saying (maybe even one of the oldest) – “You just never know!”

It’s more than a saying though. It’s an axiom of life. And even more than that, it is Scripture.

“13 Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’”  James 4:13-15

Now, it is interesting that believers and unbelievers alike share completely in the reality that our lives could turn or end at any point. We both know it full well. The expression ‘You just never know’ is absolutely universal. However, there IS a distinct difference isn’t there. Notice how in the passage we are exhorted to say, “If the Lord wills…”. And that’s the difference right there isn’t it. Those of us who trust Christ have the assurance we belong to Him and as His own, our futures are in His hands. We need to learn to trust and obey. But those without this faith are compelled to believe in fate instead – impersonal, blind chance. As such they must resign themselves to a hopeless sense of despair. The late great thinker Francis Schaeffer referred to such unfortunate souls as ‘cosmic orphans’. Better to have a heavenly Father I think.

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:25-34

Poped Out

We’ll, I’ve restrained myself for the past few weeks but here goes. I’m poped out. I’m tired of seeing it and hearing it, day in, day out, balding men in long flowing robes with beanies, religious pomp and politics, the endless nattering about nothing really… it all leaves me stone cold. A sense of history is one thing, regression is another.

Some would think I should be more sympathetic. Don’t I identify myself with all those millions of Catholic faithful tuning in with anxious anticipation? No, I don’t. I know that the world identifies me with it, and that’s probably why it bothers me the way it does. The fact that this is what comes to most people’s minds when they hear the word Christian is a disservice to the cause of Christ. I’m not being mean. It’s just a very sad thing. Lots of good people misled.   

The simple truth is that the Roman church hierarchy lost its way more than 1500 years ago and has never recovered from it. The vain traditions and misguided rituals they continue to promote above all else have little to do really with Christianity because what they are so zealous to preserve bares no resemblance to the Christian faith and practice of the New Testament. It’s mere religion.  

Doesn’t it strike you that the world media which is always unashamedly and unreservedly anti-Christ is falling over itself to cover all of this? Why is that? It’s because it doesn’t bother them at all. In fact, they kind of like it. They seem to even relish it! Why? Because it doesn’t convict them at all because they don’t recognize anything of Jesus in it.

Counterfeit has always been one of the devil’s most effective means of keeping people from discovering the truth. I shouldn’t think that I am the only one who would just like to see it all go away. Again, a lot of good people, misled. Makes my heart sick.  

Been There, Done That

Most of us have experienced it more than once. You’re talking with a person and it doesn’t matter what you say about anything, they already know more about the subject than you do. If you’ve had an experience that has taught you something, they’ve had a similar, though far greater, experience that has taught them more; make that a lot more, absolutely.  

The human mind is an amazing thing. Thinking is essential to life and thinking brings us to conclusions. Our conclusions are a necessary part of our thinking and they are what we act upon. But, if you look up the word ‘conclusion’ in the dictionary, what does it say? “Noun: the end or close; final part.” (Dictionary.com)  See a problem? The danger isn’t only that we jump to conclusions but that when we land we think we’ve arrived. The old adage about having a mind like concrete comes to mind … all mixed up and permanently set!

This is where the expression ‘keep an open mind’ comes from. Now, as I’ve already pointed out, we can’t live without thinking and we can’t think without drawing conclusions. So, on the one hand they are essential; on the other hand they are problematic.

I read an article this week that talked about ‘teachability’ (spell check says there’s no such word – go figure). The author of that article sees it as the greatest attribute you can develop. It is a forceful argument. The lack of teachability renders you incapable of learning. People who demonstrate an attitude of being ‘unteachable’ (spell check doesn’t like that either) are in effect saying they don’t need to learn because they already know it all. How dangerous (foolish) is that?!

I write this as a Christian. As a Christian, I have come to know certain things. I believe that God has opened up my eyes to the great truths of life which are the truths of the Bible. This means I am in immediate danger of becoming a ‘know-it-all’. And I have to admit, this is something that I see quite often on display in the lives of believers and I’m sure I’m no exception. And, whether I recognize it or not, any sense of smugness on my part is obnoxious.

This is not something that is missing from the Word of God. The Bible admonishing us to always practice humility and warns us of how knowledge can ‘puff us up’. It certainly seems like a paradox though doesn’t it. I mean, the more you learn the wiser you become, and the wiser you become, the more you know, and … so how does this all work really?

So much of life is a matter of our attitude isn’t it… It’s OK to think what you think and believe what you believe. That’s life. The Bible instructs us that each one should be ‘fully convinced in his own mind’. We should be people of conviction holding tight to the precious truths. But holding our convictions tightly should not mean closing our minds in such a way as to suggest that we see everything exactly as it is. That’s just arrogance. We all have our misunderstandings and we all need to practice humility of mind. 

My opinion is my opinion. I’m entitled to it, but no more than everyone else is entitled to theirs. No one (except God) knows everything. And everyone can teach me something. And keeping in mind that anyone might see something that I might miss should help keep me humble. What about you; how teachable are you?