Courageous faithfulness

This week we kicked off a brand-new teaching series called, How to Be Faithful When No One Else Is. Over the next seven weeks we are going to be working through some of the story of Daniel to see how he maintained such incredible faithfulness to God in spite of living in circumstances that were generally not even remotely supportive of that goal. Living as we do in a culture that is increasingly hostile to public expressions of the Christian faith, Daniel’s story offers us several important principles we can use to follow his great example. Thanks for reading and sharing!

Courageous Faithfulness

All actions have consequences. That’s just how things work. Sometimes we have control over and can anticipate those consequences. Sometimes we can’t. When the U.S. withdrew our forces from Iraq a few years ago, one of the unexpected consequences was the rise of ISIS. This radical, Muslim, militant group swept to power throughout the Middle East, eventually taking control of a huge swath of territory for a short time. During their brief reign of terror, the world was treated a whole litany of shocking and tragic acts by the group and those who followed them. One of the most shocking, though, also turned out to be the most inspiring. Militants kidnapped 21 oil workers from a refinery in Libya. All but one of them were Egyptian Coptic Christians. The group took these men to a beach on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa and on camera offered each one the opportunity to renounce his faith in Christ and embrace Islam. All of them refused and had their lives taken for their refusal. When it came to the turn of the one African man who was not previously a believer, he responded, “Their God is my God,” and forfeited his life as well. The story of the incredible faithfulness and courage of these men is still told throughout that region to inspire others to follow Jesus as well.

Read the rest…

This week is the penultimate stop in our series, Plugged In. Last week, we started a conversation about what it looks like for us to get staying plugged in to Jesus right. It wasn’t all that encouraging. In fact, it was a bit of a downer. If we live our lives plugged in to Jesus, the world is going to make us pay for it. But that’s not the end of the story. The beginning of the rest comes here. The world may be coming after us for following Jesus, but He has already overcome. What this means for us is what I want to talk about. Thanks for reading and sharing.

Standing in His Shadow

All degree programs have certain courses that everyone has to take. More than that, most colleges and universities have certain classes that they want all their students to take regardless of their degree program. For my undergrad, it was a JINS class—Junior Interdisciplinary Seminar. Being an officially liberal arts university, they wanted students to take a course that touched on two different academic disciplines so we were well-rounded. Apparently one course is enough to hit the mark. There were a variety of JINS courses as most professors had to teach one. I took one called The Ethical Implications of the Human Genome Project with Dr. Ryan who also happened to be my Calc 3 professor. I loved the course, but then, I’m a huge nerd, so of course I would.

Read the rest…