Morning Musing: Matthew 14:13-14

“When Jesus heard about it, he withdrew from there by boat to a remote place to be alone. When the crowds heard this, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a large crowd, had compassion on them, and healed their sick.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

A devastating hurricane recently smashed its way through my region. The impact on my own community was barely noticeable. We endured a few hours without power and some water seeping in the basement of the church building. A couple of hours west of here, though, was not nearly so fortunate. I recently heard a colleague who did mission work in Libya during and in the aftermath of their civil war say that if you took away the guns and the violence, the worst affected areas look very much like a war zone. To say the response to send and bring relief and help has been overwhelming would be an understatement. One disaster relief organization quickly mobilized to have 2,000 beds available for volunteers to help with the recovery effort and has found themselves having to manage 20,000 applications to help. And the vast majority of this response has come from Christians. Why do followers of Jesus do this in a way that goes so very far beyond what the adherents of any other worldview do?

Read the rest…

Yielding to Relationship

In this final part of our series, Reasons to Believe, we take a turn.  We are still talking about reasons to believe, but this one is different from all the rest.  At the end of the day, a person can listen to solid answers to all of their objections to the life of Christ and still not be willing to make Him their Lord.  The reason for this is that their primary objection is not logical, but relational.  This is last and most important hurdle to overcome.  When someone becomes a follower of Jesus, the most powerful reason they do so is a relationship.  Keep reading for more.

 

Yielding to Relationship

There was once a man who hated Christians.  He hated them.   He hated everything they stood for.  He hated the things they believed.  He hated the impact they were having on his culture.  There was nothing about them he liked.  It was so bad that he dreamed about hurting them.  He thought up ways he could harass them and interrupt their activities and keep them from accomplishing their goals…all within the means of the law of course.  Now, you might be thinking, “Well that guy was dumb.  It doesn’t really do any good to focus that much effort on hating a group of people.  What was his deal with religion anyway?”  But, religion wasn’t his problem.  Christians were.  He had no problems with religion.  In fact, he was a very religious guy.  He just didn’t like Christians.  Furthermore, he was no dummy.  Actually, he was brilliant.  He had gone to the best schools and studied under the best teachers.  He was routinely at the top of his class.  The level of success he had attained for his age was simply astounding.  When peers looked at him they routinely saw big things in his future.  This guy was leadership material.  There were few positions which were going to be off-limits to him.  He merely had to apply himself in the relevant directions.  With his big brain, then, and as committed as he was to the way he saw the world working, he knew all the reasons Christians and their Christianity could and should be rejected.  He could have given you a list with sources.  He had a reason for every argument.  But then, something unexpected happened.  And that something was this: he actually met Jesus.  Not literally met, of course, but he encountered Jesus in a personal, powerful way.  And all his reasons went out the window.  Instead of reasons, he now had a relationship. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Ephesians 4:17-18

“Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.  They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Understanding that by “Gentiles,” Paul is talking about people who are not followers of Jesus, this is an uncomfortable verse.  It’s not so bad that Paul calls us not to do life as they do.  The uncomfortable part–especially given our culture’s embrace of pluralism and a particular understanding of tolerance–is what comes next.  Paul describes them as futile of mind, darkened in understanding, alienated from God, ignorant, and having hardened hearts.  Try tweeting that out sometime. Read the rest…