“For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.” (Romans 3:3-4)
I just got back from our annual missions trip to Belize. For 11 glorious days, I did not speak on the phone one time, log on to the internet, or watch television for even a nano-second. Yet the world continued to spin without me. It is amazing what can be accomplished without Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Don’t misunderstand. People in Belize have cell phones and internet. We even saw someone texting while riding a bicycle. They might even have life a little better if they had more technology, but we would have it a lot better with less. When I got home, one of my first tasks was to clean out my inbox of my emails. I had 153 new emails. After deleting all the junk, I only opened and read 17 of them. 136 of the new emails were deleted without even considering their content. Most of them were attempts to separate me from my hard earned money, including over 20 of them from an overseas banker promising me several million dollars from a Nigerian prince if I would only give them my bank account number and pay a nominal fee. I even had an offer to move to England and be a nanny for a couple of fine well behaved young children ages 5 and 7. (That is one of the 17 emails that I read. I was way too curious as to who would offer me a job like that.) It is amazing to me how these scam emails keep coming. I am sure I have deleted thousands of them in the last few years, yet they still hit me. Someone out there must be falling for it, or they would not keep trying.
People believe all kinds of stupid junk. It is amazing what some people will fall for. How many of our fellow travellers on this giant dirt ball believe we actually descended from monkeys? Still yet, how many of them believe that they just might be good enough to gain heaven based on what they have done in this life? The Bible clearly spells out how to be saved by trusting in the blood of Jesus alone, yet man comes up with a “scam” a minute to deny that truth and lead people astray. Our enemy is constantly bombarding humanity with endless “emails” offering a way of salvation that is not genuine or valid. Despite that almost universal knowledge that the Nigerian banker emails are a scam, they keep coming, and not just in a trickle, but a tsunami. The simple plan of salvation by grace in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross has been published and proclaimed for generations. The apostle Paul committed its truths to writing 2,000 years ago. God confirms its truth daily as the gospel is preached in every corner of the world to this day. Yet the scams continue and proliferate.
It always amazes me when someone tries to spout out the atheist / agnostic position that “I just don’t believe in God…” They think that makes him go away. It is as if God sits in heaven saying, “Well, since these people don’t believe I exist, I will just give up.” I was there many years ago myself. Being raised in a religious home, I did what many young people do in that stage of life, I rebelled. Our religion was not New Testament fundamental Bible believing Christianity, it was Catholicism. I rebelled against the dry institutional “form of godliness” that did not proclaim the simplicity of the gospel or speak to the heart. So in rebelling, I took it way too far and rebelled against God. I thought God was manifest in the institution of the structure of the Catholic Church rather than God being seen through the pages of his book. So I became “atheist” to a point; more practically than theologically. Deep down inside, I always knew there had to be a God, but I just had no use for him. I guess I really did believe that one day, some Nigerian prince would make my life worthwhile. How wrong I was.
Be not deceived. God is still on the throne and ready to return any day. Anchor your life to the truth and then send it out to those who need it. The time is short.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Stop the World!
“Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth?” (Job 7:1)
I am sure that everyone reading this has expressed this same concern many times over. The world we live in has provided us with so many modern “conveniences” that are supposed to make our lives easier, but the reverse is actually true. We are so busy that it overwhelms even the most “organized” among us. Then there are those like me who are about as organized as a tornado. I get so far behind sometimes that I feel like I am just being driven from one event to the next. About all I can do most of the time is say, “What’s next?” Usually it is something that is due in the next 10 minutes, and I feel like I am scrambling to get to it.
We leave Friday for our annual missions trip to the tiny Caribbean nation of Belize. There is a ton of stuff to do in preparation for the trip, and with just a couple of days to go, I am in that stage of overwhelming frustration. But just like every time, God will come through with a couple of things, and I will burn the midnight oil, and it will all get done somehow. Then something really awesome will kick in for the 11 days we will be in Belize. Life here will go on without me, and there won’t be a blasted thing I can do about any of it. I think sometimes the reason why we get so busy is really rooted in the idea of our own importance rather than just the “to do list”. Most all of us think we are indispensable, and that life as we know it would collapse if we were not involved in every decision and every detail. Then I go out of the country. When we are in Belize, there is basically only one thing per day that we do. It might be a trip to a Mayan ruin or a day spent ministering to the youth at the Christian High School. But that is it. There is no “list” to be tackled. The “list” that I left behind in Kansas City just sits there. It is like I get to hit the “reset” button on life, because most of what is on the list that I left behind goes away while I am gone. After 11 days, what was urgently needed to be done either is handled by someone else or else it is determined that it really wasn’t as urgent as I thought. By the time I get back, things will be ready for me to just start over on the madness.
Time management is a big issue for our society, so much so that we spend billions of dollars on planners and iPhone apps. But God never has a time management issue. The legendary Packers coach Vince Lombardi was famous for a lot of things, including his bulldog insistence on his team being on time for everything. It led to what is called “Lombardi Time”. When a meeting was scheduled, everyone was expected to be there at least 15 minutes before the posted time. If you are on time for a meeting, you are late, and if you are late, you are cut from the team. The reason he required everyone to be there 15 minutes beforehand is to guard against the unexpected. A flat tire was no excuse. If you had left the house in time to plan for such contingencies, you would not be late. I would never have lasted a day as a Green Bay Packer in the Vince Lombardi era, even if I was the greatest football player in the league.
God is never late and seldom early. He does not have to worry about arriving 15 minutes early to plan for the unexpected. Nothing takes God by surprise. His appointment calendar and planning list never has any missing or unfulfilled items. As the verse above says, we all have a scheduled meeting with him someday. No matter what is on your to-do list, you will keep that appointment. On that day, it won’t matter if you picked up the laundry or cleaned the gutters. The world will stop that day for you – whether it is at the rapture of the church for all of us, or your final day. We will face him and give account of our lives. Those who do not know Jesus as their Saviour will have to give account of their sins. It will be a fearful thing for them on that day to “fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). Since Jesus paid for my sins, I won’t worry about that. We will give account of our service after we are saved. I trust it will be “with joy and not with grief” (Hebrews 13:17), but that depends on you.
I am sure that everyone reading this has expressed this same concern many times over. The world we live in has provided us with so many modern “conveniences” that are supposed to make our lives easier, but the reverse is actually true. We are so busy that it overwhelms even the most “organized” among us. Then there are those like me who are about as organized as a tornado. I get so far behind sometimes that I feel like I am just being driven from one event to the next. About all I can do most of the time is say, “What’s next?” Usually it is something that is due in the next 10 minutes, and I feel like I am scrambling to get to it.
We leave Friday for our annual missions trip to the tiny Caribbean nation of Belize. There is a ton of stuff to do in preparation for the trip, and with just a couple of days to go, I am in that stage of overwhelming frustration. But just like every time, God will come through with a couple of things, and I will burn the midnight oil, and it will all get done somehow. Then something really awesome will kick in for the 11 days we will be in Belize. Life here will go on without me, and there won’t be a blasted thing I can do about any of it. I think sometimes the reason why we get so busy is really rooted in the idea of our own importance rather than just the “to do list”. Most all of us think we are indispensable, and that life as we know it would collapse if we were not involved in every decision and every detail. Then I go out of the country. When we are in Belize, there is basically only one thing per day that we do. It might be a trip to a Mayan ruin or a day spent ministering to the youth at the Christian High School. But that is it. There is no “list” to be tackled. The “list” that I left behind in Kansas City just sits there. It is like I get to hit the “reset” button on life, because most of what is on the list that I left behind goes away while I am gone. After 11 days, what was urgently needed to be done either is handled by someone else or else it is determined that it really wasn’t as urgent as I thought. By the time I get back, things will be ready for me to just start over on the madness.
Time management is a big issue for our society, so much so that we spend billions of dollars on planners and iPhone apps. But God never has a time management issue. The legendary Packers coach Vince Lombardi was famous for a lot of things, including his bulldog insistence on his team being on time for everything. It led to what is called “Lombardi Time”. When a meeting was scheduled, everyone was expected to be there at least 15 minutes before the posted time. If you are on time for a meeting, you are late, and if you are late, you are cut from the team. The reason he required everyone to be there 15 minutes beforehand is to guard against the unexpected. A flat tire was no excuse. If you had left the house in time to plan for such contingencies, you would not be late. I would never have lasted a day as a Green Bay Packer in the Vince Lombardi era, even if I was the greatest football player in the league.
God is never late and seldom early. He does not have to worry about arriving 15 minutes early to plan for the unexpected. Nothing takes God by surprise. His appointment calendar and planning list never has any missing or unfulfilled items. As the verse above says, we all have a scheduled meeting with him someday. No matter what is on your to-do list, you will keep that appointment. On that day, it won’t matter if you picked up the laundry or cleaned the gutters. The world will stop that day for you – whether it is at the rapture of the church for all of us, or your final day. We will face him and give account of our lives. Those who do not know Jesus as their Saviour will have to give account of their sins. It will be a fearful thing for them on that day to “fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). Since Jesus paid for my sins, I won’t worry about that. We will give account of our service after we are saved. I trust it will be “with joy and not with grief” (Hebrews 13:17), but that depends on you.
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