THE GOSPEL

     There's been a lot of talk lately about the Gospel and what it is, or isn't. If you're like me, you've heard a number of variations of gospel presentations and most are given by very sincere people who have learned methods of delivering a gospel presentation from church classes and Gospel tract steps. I won't bother you with my opinion that knowing the Bible is pretty important for giving the Gospel because I have a firm belief in the work of the Holy Spirit to interject His will when yours is a little nervous, but I will say this: knowing the Gospel yourself is vitally important to sharing it with someone else.


     Do you wonder why Gospel presentations are so different person to person and church to church? Sometimes they have such vast differences that it might lead you to think that the Gospel has changed since it was first delivered to early believers in the first century. But, in reality, the crux of the problem for man today is that in spite of man's own best efforts to tailor a gospel to his own desires, the Gospel today is the same as it has always been. Like Paul who led before us....we preach the resurrected Christ. The Gospel didn't change in the first three centuries after Jesus' death, burial, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of the Father even though false teachers had entered the church and tried to skew it to a works based effort. The Gospel didn't change when the Roman Church developed a method of penance and changed the Greek words into Latin words, thereby making 'turning to Christ' from the Greek to a more workable phrase for their designs, 'turning away from sin.' The Gospel didn't change during the reformation as Calvin and Luther struggled with prioritizing God's attributes and subsequently limiting God's Sovereignty to what man could understand. And finally, the Gospel has not changed today even though false teachers are again in the church making a man-centered gospel that is geared to drawing you in because God has a plan and a purpose for your life here.  It ain't about here.

     So exactly, what is the Gospel? What is John saying in John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."? What does Paul mean in Romans when he says the resurrected Christ? Is Peter on the same page when he states in 1Pet 1:3-5, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."


     Saving faith is the belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God who died and rose again to pay one's personal penalty for sin and the one who gives eternal life to all who trust Him and Him alone.


     The Gospel, literally translated Good News, has the object of Jesus Christ and the content of believing in Him as (1) The Son of God who died and rose again; (2) To pay your personal penalty for sin; (3) Thereby giving eternal life to all those who trust in Him for it; (4) and in Him alone.

     There were some three hundreds predictions that a Messiah would come and offer salvation to the world written hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus Christ was born. There is no doubt that He was born....the record of the Bible has stood every test of artifact and archeology it has been challenged with. Not only did Christians write about the life and death of Jesus Christ, but nonbelieving Jews, Romans, and Greeks filled page after page with the stories of this man who came and turned their world upside-down. The chances that one man could have fulfilled all of the prophecies of the Old Testament is calculated at 10 to the 2000th power. That's 10 followed by 2000 zeros that I know you are happy I didn't type out. Detailed prophecies such as where He would be born, from what family line He would come through, His betrayal by Judas, His beating and scourging, the piercing of His Hands and feet (predicted 600 years before crucifixion was known to mankind), being crucified with thieves, being given gall and vinegar, His burial in a rich man's tomb, and on and on and on.....


     Jesus' resurrection and post resurrection appearances were witnessed by over 500 people. It carried such an impact in the lives of those who knew Him that timid disciples who had left His tomb dejectedly three days prior and returned to their fishing became embolden Apostles who led thousands and thousands to Christ over the next few short years of their lives. Did I say short? Yes....short....all but one Apostle and many others were killed for the faith. Only the Apostle John, whom Jesus had entrusted with His mother, lived to a long life.


     What did all of this accomplish? Well, it was the perfect sacrifice that was required to pay for sin. The world's sin. My sin. Your sin too. Jesus was perfect, He led a sinless life and He laid it down upon the cross because you and I cannot. He beat death, He beat Satan and pronounced judgment upon Him, and He beat hell. No other person or faith has made that claimed and backed it up with a spotless record of historical records.


     God is a perfect God. Sin cannot enter heaven. It had to be paid for. Did you know that no one goes to hell for their sin? That's important to note because even with faith, people sin. You can't clean up enough before knowing Christ or afterwards to be acceptable in heaven or acceptable for forgiveness. Jesus' work in His death, burial, and resurrection is the only work that could accomplish was man never could. Try it...try to be sin free for one week. No anger, no bitterness, no sharp tongue, no immoral thoughts....nothing. I personally do very well until I get out of bed in the morning.

     To those that trust in Jesus for salvation, He gives eternal life. By faith we are made righteous. Some people say that a good God wouldn't send anyone to Hell....eternal destruction. But would a good God make them have fellowship with Him when they didn't want to? Hell is the natural outcome of a life that does not want God. It's honoring your request...to leave you to what you desire. Asking God to remove the consequences from your life after the fact is kind of like asking the judge not to charge you with a DUI and manslaughter because even though you knew you might get into an accident driving intoxicated....you didn't want to get into that accident and kill someone. Just like we set rules here, God has a nonnegotiable rule about fellowship. To have it later in eternity you must have had it now.


     Trusting in Jesus for your salvation is total. It's not Jesus and your works, Jesus and baptism, Jesus and anything else that man has come up with in history. It's trust in Jesus. That's why you cannot repent of your sin 'before' or 'in order to' be forgiven. If you could, then you could trust in that. You can't trust in baptism because that too would have something to do with you. You have to trust in Jesus. It's not easy....but it is also not fraught with a works based system that man has never been able to achieve. Jesus, and Jesus alone, made God accessible to the world.


     I share the Gospel sincerely and frequently for two reasons. One, because my faith and trust in Jesus Christ creates a heartache inside of me for your eternal condition. I am human here, despite my best efforts, and the thought of anyone going to the hell created not for man, but for Satan and his legion, wounds me. Two, because your salvation brings glory to a perfect Father who desires that none should reject him and perish. What a price He paid to accomplish that! What a shame should we not avail ourselves of what He so freely offers. You are not too good to go to hell. You are not too bad to go to heaven. You do not have forever to decide.






In Jesus' Name,
Liz

You Can't Look Ahead from the Rear View Mirror

     All mornings find a good cup of joe absolutely necessary. Some mornings, however, the coffee is just better, so good that it stops you with a semblance of alertness as you consider just how great it is. And so you say to yourself, “I think I’ll stop for awhile and enjoy these moments.” Maybe have some devotion time after your devotion time and more and more often, like this morning, I am finding myself not wanting to leave that time of worship and praise and awe inspiring wonder. Even today, I follow the ACTS way of praying; adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. Only now, as I am older, I have modified it to ACTSAT. Oh, don’t misunderstand, my prayers are still chock full of confession and supplication! But the years have softened some edges and matured some outlook and the closer I grow to God it brings me again and again closer in the knowledge that He is so worthy and worthy to be praised – in a blinding sort of way that can only be expressed prostrate before Him. What in this world could not be done if God were in the doing?


     Certainly I won’t be able to spend all morning here in reflection. Soon I will be pulling out boxes and laying aside paper, tucking away treasures for yet another year. It will be a day job that I will dally into three and no matter how hard I try the last sparkles with not leave until April. Some of it will go rather fast as the flowers and whatnots get tucked away and the tree will go very slow as it always does. One by one the ornaments will be taken down, wrapped up for safety, and nestled in a safe box for storage. Many times I will stop and hold an ornament and remember the chubby little hands that so lovingly put it together over twenty years ago and, yes, if no one is watching I will laugh and I will cry. Laughter for those chubby hands and chubby smile and chubby wonderment that my boys always had as they readied our home for Christmas and tears of gratitude for God’s provision as He took care of us in some much harder times. It is a large tree that looms before me and it holds on its branches the imprints of the fullness of life.

     There needn’t have been more to our tree and yet there is. On what would be an old and dusty collection of life’s loving trinkets splayed across it breadth are newer and shinier treasures that dangle and dazzle before the lights. New chubby little hands have worked ferociously hard as only Christmas elves could to leave their marks of life in the promise of God’s provision. You have no idea what a couple of popsicle sticks and a whole lot of love can make but I promise you, if it surrounds a picture of a princess and a note that says, “I love you, Papa” or “I love you, Lama,” it has the power of landing great gratitude on the humbled heart. Oh, Lord, how can we ever adore or thank thee enough?

     What then could be the motivation for wanting to take down the tree and place all my memories away in hiding for so long again? Could I humbly suggest that while it is true that we will see the footsteps of where God has been all through our yesteryears we lay them aside because that is not where He is working now. Our tradition for closing out one season and opening another has great biblical roots and the God who led the children of Israel into a new land is waiting to lead you, and me, further today. I must, albeit lovingly, wrap up my trinkets one by one and give them rest because the Father is no longer there; He is holding me today and waiting for me tomorrow. And what waits for us in tomorrow? All tomorrows! And more chubby hands in the journey. Rick and I ask that you would join us in prayer as we seek to reach more hurting families in 2010 with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and open our lives further, and our home, to more children.

     May He bless all of you in 2010 with the imprint of life and the wonderment of eternity. What is it that you could not do if He were in the doing? I dare say, 2010 is the year to do anything and everything.

“My eager desire and hope being that I may never feel ashamed, but that now as ever I may do honor to Christ in my own person by fearless courage.” (Philippians 1:20)

A Christmas Story

“I have to trust God for the journey.”

Simple. Matter of fact. Unwavering. If you weren’t careful you’d miss just how quiet her voice really is. She says this so strongly and all at once you’re reminded once again how powerfully God works in the lives of those who love Him. You wouldn’t have to tell her that this is a world dotted with disease, she knows all of that first hand, but you couldn’t convince her that miracles still didn’t occur for she knows all about them now. That night we were coming together to pray for one more.

All the little ones are asleep now, dreaming Christmas dreams, while my big ones wrap last minute gifts and pots and pans clang together in a kitchen dusted with flour and beginning to smell like ham. I am in between dishes so I slip away to write before life speeds up again – somewhere, somehow I have to keep finding places to put the miracles. Some are on scraps of paper tucked inside my Bible or purse as they wait to go into a journal, others are noted on the back cover of my Bible and still too many rest in my head and on my heart and I fear they will never all be written down. But this one should because it’s Christmas and what would a Christmas story be without a Christmas miracle?

I had nothing to give her and she didn’t care, she never came to me asking for anything. Somebody else called me to see if I could help because she had inspired them but here it was a week before Christmas and the coffers are near dry. Food and gas, yes, but finding a place to lay your head when you have none is next to impossible and finding a home by Christmas is just out of the question. Especially when you don’t have a penny and won’t for another couple of months until you are out of school. So we did what Christians do, we came together to lift it up in prayer. It was when her small hands melded into mine that I noticed that she was missing a number of fingers. I guess it surprised me, not for the injury, but because she was completing Cosmetology School in record time. It couldn’t have made it any easier, could it? As I rubbed the places on her hands that had seen so much hurt, I asked before I thought, “What happened to your hands, honey?”

“Well,” Miss Liz, “That’s when it was all getting bad. We were all doing the drugs and selling the drugs and some of them, my boyfriend included, started to get nervous. They thought I was talking to the Feds about them and decided to kill me. They attacked me with a hammer, that there is what happened to my fingers and the side of my mouth, and then they set me on fire. It’s amazing I don’t look worse than I do.”

She doesn’t remember who put out the flames or much about the life flight to the hospital but she does remember that when she got better she went to jail – they all did. Whoever had been talking had talked enough. “I ain’t gonna lie to you, Miss Liz, I was running pretty bad and I deserved to go in. And I ain’t mad about it either, it was there I found Jesus.”

And so she did. I asked if she relapsed after she got out of jail and she laughed like she does and said, “Oh, yea, that very first week!” She was clean, but she didn’t know how to live clean. But, she did know Jesus so she walked herself right into a church and told them they had to help her learn to live clean. Just like that. She signed up for school, worked every single hour they would let her, and one month before she was done she is now homeless. And so, we did what Christians do and we gathered together to pray. The coffee house rocked there for a little bit, I’ll give you that.

“See, Miss Liz, this is why I just have to trust God for the journey. You and I both know that there is just no way for me to get a place for me and the boys by Christmas. Everybody knows that. But what I know that they don’t is that God ain’t done with me yet. He didn’t bring me here to just drop me off and say ‘No, more, that’s all you’re going, girl.’ No ma’am, He’s got work for me to do and I’m telling you, I’m going to trust Him for this.”

Now, you’ve got to know, I agreed with her. There was just no way for her to get a home in a week. And because this is what I do more times that I want, I didn’t want to promise her something I certainly couldn’t deliver on nor did I want to give her false hope. But……but you weren’t there. And so, as I held her hand and rubbed over those spots that still must hurt now and then I said, “I think you’ve got your trust put exactly where it needs to be.”

Two days ago….well, now three, it’s officially Christmas as I write this….she is given a key to her new home. It may have been the most joyous message ever left on my voicemail! A few phone calls and a couple of angels later she has rugs and dishes and lamps and whatnots because isn’t joy just like that, contagious as all get out? She’s nice and warm and tucked away with her boys and doesn’t have to worry about rent for quite a few months and how about that for a Christmas story?

So I have a few more dishes to cook and there’s a little more quiet to be had and soon the house will wake up to squeals of laughter and you know, that will be just fine. We love our babies and delight in their delights. I was most delighted the other evening, however, when I heard sneaking little girls crawling and whispering around the tree wondering the wonders of Christmas and I heard the wise big sister explain to the little sister, “You know, Christmas isn’t about us, it’s about Jesus. He’s the real gift.” It is my prayer that each person here knows that there’s miracles to be had – you just have to trust God for the journey.

Merry Christmas!

Precious Cargo

     I read about cargo cults a number of years ago but most recently began thinking of them during a quiet period I've had that's been focused on missions and evangelism.  During WWII, the military discovered a number of isolated tribal groups on various South Pacific islands that it was utilizing and began a practice of flying over the islands and dropping down food and goods.  Later, after the war, missionary groups sought to evangelize these unreached people groups only to discover that it was nearly impossible to do so for they had learned to worship the planes!

     Cargo cults don't really exist today in the classic sense as technology has made isolation nearly impossible, but many not so good things came out of those times.  A cargo cult mentality was developed and some people learned to control other groups with goods and services.  At the other extreme, some churches simply stopped their need meeting completely considering it to be a social program that did no good at all.  But in the middle, where most everybody still stands, the worst of the outpouring from the cargo cults is the fact that we haven't learned very much at all from history.

     The problem was never the cargo, it was always the plane.  Cargo is often the vehicle by which your compassion, and your witness, will travel.  It certainly was a good enough method of reaching the unreached for our Savior and He did it for every reason that we should do it too.  His heart was stirred by compassion!  For that very reason, Jesus did not load up chariots of loaves and fish and send them to the masses, although He very well could have.  No, instead He went to the people with the bread and fish and touched them in the process.

     This year, Christians have some of the greatest opportunities to reach out to our surrounding communities with hearts stirred by compassion and hands of help.  Many will deliver welcome Christmas dinners to families who would have instead gone without.  Others will adopt families for Christmas and surprise boys and girls in a most wonderful way.  These families will appreciate you, of this I have no doubt, and will talk about your good work for many years to come.

     But, if come next Easter their last sighting of you was the taillights of your car as you pulled away waving on December 24th, you have failed to deliver the most precious cargo of all.   

     This Christmas, I would like to challenge you to invest yourself into your community.  If you are meeting a need this year for a needy family (and Christian, is there any good reason you are not?), would you commit to loving this family all the way until next Christmas?  It would amaze you the work God has for you right there where you are already planning to go anyway.  I can think of no better way to see the reward of saved lives than Christians investing their faith into other people.  What better Christmas gift can you give than reaching out to someone fully enough to share with them the gift of eternal life that can only be had in the saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ?

     "May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting of my hands be like the evening sacrifice."   (Psalm 141.2)

     Could our prayer, our compassion, and our witness this year be so fiery hot that it would warm the homes of many for all the months ahead?  It can, if that be your fervor and your passion.  It will, if that be your intention.  There is an inescapable truth - a person will always follow their heart's desire.  Where, my friend, is yours leading you?  I pray for the precious cargo you are carrying with you today.

What Has Love Got To Do With It?

     There is this story of a missionary who once visited a remote village in India and happened upon the villagers in the midst of great excitement and celebration. Pulling aside one of the village fathers, the missionary asked what all of the excitement was about. He was told, “We have seen love today!” Pressed further, the village father shared with him what had taken place.

     “It is the culture of our people that when a man desires to marry a woman, the man is to give her family a dowry based upon her beauty. The most beautiful woman can receive for her family great wealth and it is a much anticipated thing when a beautiful girl reaches the age to marry.”

     The missionary spoke, “So you had a very beautiful woman reach her age today?”

     “No, we did not. We had a very plain woman come of age today,” replied the leader. “The man who is interested in her is the son of our wealthiest villager. Together they own more than half of the whole village and the son himself owns half of that. There has been much speculation as to why he would have interest in such a plain woman and as the weeks and days have passed leading up to her day of birth, there has been much talk about the dowry and how cheaply he would take this wife. Many families with beautiful daughters felt slighted and the young woman herself has been in seclusion, embarrassed to know how plain she is seen. Would he bring one cow, two sheep, two cows? Truly, it has captured the conversation of our entire village!”

     “This morning the people of our village began lining up along the path that led to the young woman’s house to wait for the wealthy son to come with his dowry. I was there early, very close to the house, and I must tell you that for all the celebration it was very sad inside for the young woman and her family. Her father was angry that his daughter was to be used for a cheap wife, humiliating the whole family. The mother wailed in shame. And the daughter cried softly, maybe knowing that for the rest of her life that this day would be talked about in this village. So much commotion that at first, I did not realize that there was a new commotion coming along the path. It was the son bringing his offering for her dowry!”

     The missionary, completely enthralled by the story now, asked excitedly, “And so, what did he bring? One cow? Two sheep? Did he bring three cows, is that why the people are celebrating?” “No,” whispered the village father, obviously still greatly affected by what had transpired.

     “The young man brought it all. He gave everything he had to be with the young woman he loved.”

     “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:16

     If you are like the many women who will read this devotion you may have woke up recently and asked yourself, “How in the world did I get here today?” Oh, the journeys and paths to today may have been very different and yours is uniquely yours with its own twists and turns but still, here you are and here is what we all have in common. Somewhere, somehow, love did not turn out to be what you thought it was.

     God tells us in His Word that love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all thing. Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a)

     Many women, however, never experience God’s love because they have traded His perfect love for worldly love, sin, and short pleasures that never seem to last. If that is where you find yourself today, I want to tell you – it doesn’t have to stay that way. God says that He is intimately acquainted with all of your ways that He formed you while you were in your mother’s womb and that He made you fearfully and wonderfully. He did not create you for what you see before you today in your circumstance, He created you to know Him and to live your life in His love. His perfect love!

I, personally, would love for you to know more. If you have any questions or would like to get together and talk, you can email me at lzwilliams@bellsouth.net.

The Rest of the Story

     A decade later our missionary friend went back to visit the same village in our story. It had changed quite a bit in the last ten years, he noticed, being much larger and with so many more people milling around. He looked for some time to see if he could see anyone he recognized from his first visit with no luck. Finally, he came upon a group of women sewing in the market and asked where the village father he once knew could be found.

     “I am sorry,” one very beautiful woman said, “but the one you ask for passed away some years ago. Could I find someone else to help you?”

     The woman was so beautiful and so kind and she seemed to be such a leader among all of the women there that the missionary felt that he could ask her the question that had burdened his heart. “Tell me, if you would. Whatever happened to the plain young woman who married the wealthy man’s son? Are they still here?”

     Smiling all the more beautifully the woman replied, “Yes, my husband and I are still here.”

You don’t know how beautiful you are until you discover how beautiful you are to God.

How Not To Forget

     The headlines, the twit feeds, the blog posts all declare that we, America, will never forget today.  Yet for the most part, unless there is a loved one fighting the war or a lost one to the tragedy, America has done a pretty good job at forgetting this ail for 364 days.  Long before the clean-up of the rallies is done we will be a nation that goes back into its homes and turns on its televisions to watch and escape to some other place or some other time.  The American flag pics on our avatars will be replaced with whatever is next and we will wait until this time next year to never forget again.  September 11th has become the third Christian Holiday, after Christmas and Easter, which reminds us to remember, to pray, and to maybe attend worship.

Did you ever wonder if you approached your salvation in the same way?

"Work out your salvation with fear and trembling."  Philippians 2:12b

     Last term I had the pleasure of a wonderful professor whose life example for this verse was by far testimony and testimony again.  I'd like to share that with you and pray that if it is done well you will have high thoughts of him and if I should fail to convey his story as beautifully as I remember it being told, you will reserve your low thoughts for me.

     Dr. C lived in a country where Christianity is not as freely accepted as it is here in our country.  In fact, he lived there during a time of great persecution for Christians and was finally compelled to leave his homeland and seek safety and refuge in America.  As he prepared to leave most of everything he had behind to come live with a host family here, he had the thoughtfulness (my words, not his) to bring along an antique vase as a gift for his host.

     When he boarded the plane that would begin his trip to America, Dr. C asked that he be allowed to carry the vase instead of having to stow it in baggage where he was certain that it would be smashed to smithereens.  By grace he was given such an exception and he began the long trip to his new home holding securely onto this vase.  He pointed out to his students that this vase was very much like our own salvation.  As he held it tightly on the airplane he was never worried about losing it but he was mindful to know that if he wasn't careful he could damage it.  A drop here or a bump there and the vase could be cracked or chipped or even worse, broke in a number of places.  Certainly, he would still have every piece, but where would be the beauty or the usefulness in an antique vase of broken pieces?  It was his desire to deliver this vase to his host as a beautiful and most useful gift.

     Christian, today we are reminded of many things, not the least of these being the fragility and temporal existence of life itself.  We are reminded that nations rise and nations fall and our own has not been guaranteed eternity.  We are reminded that nothing that man can make will last and nothing that God has made, but man, has the hope to do so either.  And finally, we are reminded, that if we wait to remember only once a year, we will most certainly forget.

     If you are looking back to a moment in time to define your salvation, you are looking for a vase that more than likely has been stowed in baggage.  The late and great Adrian Rogers reminded us in his book, What Every Christian Ought to Know, that the word believe is an active verb in the Bible.  It is not a moment in time, a memory past, an event that occured and was soon forgotten, it is there - now - or it might not be there at all.

     "Work out...." not work in, or work for, but work out.

     I learned quite a few things from Dr. C this year and more than one of them didn't appear in the textbook.  In this story, I learned to look at my salvation as a gift I'd like to present to my host, as yet unseen, as something beautiful and useful.  I didn't make it, I certainly can't improve upon it, but I believe that I can be so grateful for the grace that allowed me to have it that I could protect it from that which could damage it.  And, if I had any undo worry, I am told in the next verse of Philippians that I will not have to work this out alone; amazingly He will work in me for that also is to His glory.

     It's a personal question but it's a blog, no one but you will know how you answer.  How many times these last 364 days did you stop to remember 9/11 or have a moment of silence?  In the cry of never forgetting that we do every year on this date - did you?  For that is man, is it not, to leave a marker and then never go back to see it.

          Don't let that be the story of your salvation.  A remembrance that occurs two or three times a year, a donation that is dropped into a pot at the sound of a ringing bell, a family picture because you are all dressed so nicely, a vase that was left in baggage.

     Instead, let today be the day that you remember how fleeting this promise is, how quickly a candle is blown out, how you - and me - were never promised one more day.  Let today be the day you recommit to reading your Bible, praying with your wife, making plans to get back in your Bible Study group and, if necessary, answering a call if the Lord is speaking to you.  Let today be now - because now is such a great time.  Thank you, Dr. C and as you would write,

In His Grip.   

    

        

Do You See What He Sees?

     The other day a few of us were discussing the media's uncanny ability to come into your town during a tragedy or disaster and pick the absolute worst representative of your county to interview.  There's a certain queasiness you feel later while watching the news reports and waiting for your Joe Neighbor to say, "....and I don't believe anyone has ever really gone to the moon....."

     It's the same queasiness I feel when the football audience here is panned and I'm wondering if I will recognize the owner of the painted belly highlighted on the jumbotron and, I confess, it's the same queasiness I feel when Christians are given a turn at the microphone or the blog or the half a bajillion places everyone can go now to have their voices heard.  It never ceases to amaze me what people will say while, at the same time, confessing Jesus Christ.  It makes me wonder if we're getting it at all.

     A beggar walked up to a woman who was about to enter a coffee shop and exclaimed, "Lady, I haven't eaten in a week."

"Wow," exclaimed the woman, "I wish I had your will power."

     Would it be okay to suggest that we stop and think a little bit more?  And, while I'm there, would it be okay to suggest that we stop and think a little bit more before we say what we do about healthcare?  Because, while it is certainly one of the last things we want to see government run, it's not the A to Z argument that Christians are making it out to be.  It's the A argument  - and you can stop right there at abortion.  What else does a Christian need to say?  If the government gets a hold of healthcare you can safely assume that it will not be long before the Hyde Amendment is repealed.  What is the Hyde Amendment?  The only thing that would prevent the government from using its healthcare plan to federally fund abortions.  Obama is already on record as not supporting it.

     So there you go, you can stop at A.  And you just might want to consider that because a walk through the B-C-D-Etc doesn't bode as well for the Christian.  Government should not have such a great hand in social programs.  Churches should have a larger presence.  When that gets out of balance, like it has, I think that we have to own the portion that is ours.  You can't take what people give away willingly and any walk down history lane is a good reminder of the human tendency to forego freedom when they forget responsibility. 

     Maybe it doesn't merit the queasiness I feel when I hear Christians voice who does and does not deserve healthcare but I still cringe everytime I see the church head towards a revolution when it truly needs to be working inwardly towards a revival.  What are we to tell those who continue to look to us for answers?  What do our words sound like when they are no longer wrapped in love?  Look, I'm with you - there are some very good reasons to oppose government run healthcare.

There are some very bad ones too.

     You should know what your motivations are and what witness those motivations are carrying to the world around you.  Your turn at the mic or the blog might or might not convey a great grasp of the Constitution, though that would be nice.  But as a Christian, it should convey first and foremost a biblical worldview born from a clear grasp of His Word.  Revolution has never changed a world like Revival has.