An Incredible Journey

Many missionary biographies chronicle both the gentle and dramatic ways God proves his faithfulness, love, and presence to his people.  Even as they face persecution and death, they are enabled by the same Spirit who empowered Christ to love people who were, at best, indifferent to him, and, at worst, those who despised his very existence.  Despite being framed, prosecuted, and unjustly sentenced to death, Jesus cried out for God to forgive even his executioners (Luke 23:34).

This same Spirit leads us into a reformation; we are walking away from a self-centered and self-absorbed existence toward a reality defined by worshiping God and loving others.  This Spirit changes us, despite our frequent reminders of the past, into people who act and think more and more like Jesus.

As we walk with the Spirit on this journey of reformation, we see amazing changes in ourselves.  We do and say and think things we had sworn we would never do.  Growing up in a pastor's home, I swore I'd never be a pastor.  However, Jesus gently changed my thinking.  I swore, too, that I'd never be a missionary.

Jesus had different plans for me than I had for me.  He has called me to be a missionary, despite the battles that sometimes rage inside me.  He paired me with a partner who has long had a heart to serve others.  Heather demonstrated this in short-term mission trips in college before we were married, and she demonstrates it every day in serving our children, serving the people of our church, and serving her husband.  The mission Jesus called me to was to share his good news.  Despite our wickedness and rebellion, God made a way for us to dwell with him as his people through Jesus of Nazareth's death, burial, and resurrection.

By our belief in the truth of Jesus's death, burial, and resurrection, and by way of our ongoing dependence on his sacrifice as sufficient to pay the penalty of our sin and make us right with God, God has adopted us into his family.  We have become his children.  God chose to bring us into his family, and most of us don't look like Jesus the Jew.  God decided to love people from all over the world, and God's Spirit moves in us to do the same!

So, my wife and I are missionaries, preparing to share the good news with someone who doesn't speak our language.  We are travelling overseas to a distant, ancient land, and our target people group is made up of one individual!  We are praying that God will adopt the daughter that we are going to adopt.

Of course, we hope that we can influence others as well, but we have been called by God to illustrate his adoption of us by imitating him.  And he has gently and dramatically proven his faithfulness, love, and presence to us.  Please pray for us as we undertake the difficult task of loving and shepherding a little girl who may have serious developmental challenges, who doesn't speak English, and who may be indifferent to us, or even hate us.  Who knows what other challenges we may face?

Well, we know the one who knows, and those unknown challenges are all part of his plan for us to experience reformation.  May we grow in worship of Jesus and love for others.

~ Todd

Desperate for Change

Are you desperate for change? Have you exhausted your resources in an effort to fix your life? Mark 5:24-34 tells a story about a woman who had spent all that she had in an attempt to heal her body, but all that money and time and pain had been an exercise in futility. For 12 years, this woman had fought with her disease, gotten a second opinion, then a third, and yet no doctor or treatment could cure her of her disease.

Aren't our lives like this? We have a horrible disease; it is called sin. You can fight it, but you will lose. Just like someone with a deadly virus, we are dead men walking, because sin is a spiritual disease that has physical effects. We die physically because of the disease of sin we were born with. That's the bad news.

Here's the good news. Jesus Christ. Just like our friend in Mark, who stalked Jesus, reached out her hand in faith and touched his clothes, all we must do is reach out our hand in faith and trust in Jesus' obedient life and sacrificial death. When we put our faith, our trust, in Jesus Christ, we are healed, too! Our spiritual disease gets cured, and we start seeing evidence in our thoughts, attitudes, and actions.

So go in peace, and follow Christ!

Todd

Portrait of a Believer

Mark 5:1-20 tells us the story about a man who was out of control. His life was ruled by demons. And not just a couple; the name of the demon was Legion, "for we are many." How many? Enough to stampede 2,000 pigs to their death. This man was miserable, crying out and cutting himself day and night. He was living in the graveyard, for crying out loud, and he was obviously harassing the general public if they were attempting to restrain him with shackles. But it didn't do any good; the demons were too strong. No chains could bind him; no jail cell could hold him.

So how do you explain the man, "sitting there, clothed and in his right mind"? Who is this Jesus? And what happened to the pigs!?! I can imagine the reactions of the people, and I'm not terribly surprised that they begged Jesus to leave. Jesus rocked their world.

Jesus rocked the world of the man with the demons, too, and he was ready to follow Jesus. Jesus had other plans, however. Jesus told the man to go home, and to tell his friends what God had done for him. I think this is precisely what God expects us to do; we have been freed from the demonic stranglehold of sin. We are no longer in bondage to sin. We are free to serve! And all God wants us to do is keep loving Jesus and to tell our friends what he has done for us.

What has Jesus done for you?

Todd

Barry Bonds, Arrogance, and the Promises of God

Barry Bonds was indicted on Thursday, November 15, 2007, for perjury and obstruction of justice charges. While we don't really "know" whether he is guilty or innocent of these charges, we do know that he is guilty of a different charge. One would be blind not to recognize Bond's arrogant attitude. It exhibits itself after every home run. It is written in the contempt on his face for every television camera. No one can deny the charge that Bonds public life is characterized by arrogance.

The Bible speaks clearly on this matter, and God expresses his own attitude about those characterized by arrogance. Proverbs 16:5 tells us, "Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the LORD; be assured, he will not go unpunished." It is no wonder why Bonds has earned such incredible negative sentiment from the public. Everyone who sees his attitude for what it is feels disgusted by his contempt.

Nevertheless, I am not happy that Bonds faces the possibility of prison. Don't get me wrong; part of me longs for that guy to get his name expunged from the baseball record books. Part of me wishes he would get what he deserves. But much more of me wants to weep for that poor, miserable, unhappy, contemptuous, arrogant man. He has no idea what awaits him in eternity! He bears fruit in keeping with ungodliness, and this is precisely why God can assure us that "he will not go unpunished." How will he deceive the Judge who was with him when he put the needle in his arm and could hear his thoughts?

What's worse? You are arrogant. You are contemptuous. You display attitudes just like Barry Bonds. Maybe you don't do it on TV in front of millions of people, but you might do it in your car when somebody wants to get over in your lane and you don't want them to. Maybe you feel a little too proud of your achievements at work. Maybe you fail to offer up every praise you receive to the one who gave you everything you have, including every breath and heartbeat.

Barry Bonds' arrogance will be paid for; either by Barry, in hell for eternity, or by God's glorious gift of grace in Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. We, with broken hearts, long for God's justice, but we pray that his justice will fall on Christ's work and not Barry's ultimate demise.

Forgive us Father for our pride.

Todd

The Gospel: Puritan Style

I am reading a book by J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness; The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life, and I wanted to post an interesting statement reflecting the views of the Puritans regarding the gospel:

The Puritan position was that only God, by his Spirit, through his word, can bring sinners to faith, and that he does this, not to our order, but according to his own free purpose. Our evangelistic practice, the Puritans would say, must be in accord with this truth. Modes of action which imply another doctrine cannot be approved.

The Puritan position seems [undoubtedly] biblical, and ... its implications are of great importance for the reforming of inherited evangelistic traditions today. It implies, to start with, that all devices for exerting psychological pressure in order to precipitate 'decisions' must be [avoided], as being in truth presumptuous attempts to intrude into the province of the Holy Ghost. It means, further, that to [renounce] such devices is no loss, since their use can contribute nothing whatever to the effectiveness of evangelistic preaching. Indeed, it will in the long run detract from it; for while psychological pressures, skillfully handled, may produce the outward form of 'decision', they cannot bring about regeneration and a change of heart, and when the 'decisions' wear off those who registered them will be found 'gospel-hardened' and antagonistic. Such forcing of tactics can only do damage, perhaps incalculable damage, to men's souls. It follows, therefore, that high-speed evangelism is not a valid option. Evangelism must rather be conceived as a long-term enterprise of patient teaching and instruction, in which God's servants seek simply to be faithful in delivering the gospel message and applying it to human lives, and leave it to God's Spirit to draw men to faith through this message in his own way and at his own speed.

How does the Spirit work? Does he authentically work through our begging people to walk an aisle, or does he work most powerfully through the preaching of God's word? "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Romans 10:17).