2 Corinthians 1:9-10 “In fact, we felt sure that we were going to die. But this made us stop trusting in ourselves and start trusting God, who raises the dead to life. God saved us from the threat of death, and we are sure that he will do it again and again.” (CEV)

Last week, I had a dream. Now I don't think it was prophetic or was God showing me something or teaching me something. I doubt it had much more bearing than my readings before I went to sleep, but I leave that for you to decide.

Now, in this dream world - as in most all dreams - there is a pervasive knowledge about things and what they are and what they represent even though the images are not distinct. In my dream, a figure that I knew represented me. The figure of me was walking across a bridge or a path, something over a dark background that had the feeling of an abyss or a chasm. In the middle of the bridge I encountered problems and knelt, burdened, barely able to stay upright. Suddenly, swarming both ends of the bridge were white figures with wings which I knew to be angels due to the dream knowledge. They were trampling and running over each other in their hurry to get to me, their hands outstretched, straining and striving with each other to aid me in my trial. Right before any of them could reach me and touch me, a light sprung up around me, a Holy light, The Holy light. Then came words without speech or voice. “No! He must go through this without your interference to be made and molded and prepared into who I am making, molding, and preparing him to be! He is being prepared for what is to come.” At that point I woke up because the phone was ringing.

Looking at Paul and what he went through, the trials he endured, the stonings that he withstood, and the hardships he bore all for the sake of the Gospel that is Jesus Christ. It is when there are no more options present that we can see, it is when we despair of what we are able to do that God's hands are proven mighty indeed. When we have nothing left, He says “I have everything.” It is when we are without options that our trust is tested and proven. We, as fallen humans, cannot truly trust until trust is all we have left.

I’ll not be afraid for the terror by night, nor the arrow that flieth by day;
For the Lord whom I serve is my shield and my light, he will guide and protect all the way.
I’ll not be afraid, I’ll not be afraid, where He leadeth I safely can go;
I will trust Him alway, both by night and by day, He’ll be with me forever, I know.

I’ll not be afraid, though the stormy winds blow, and the billows sweep over my soul;
He who calmeth the sea will protect me, I know, and will lead me to heaven’s bright goal.
I’ll not be afraid, I’ll not be afraid, where He leadeth I safely can go;
I will trust Him alway, both by night and by day, He’ll be with me forever, I know.

I’ll not be afraid of the scorns of the world, nor to tell of God’s wonderful love;
When from Satan’s vile host fiery darts shall be hurled,I’ll be strengthened with grace from above.
I’ll not be afraid, I’ll not be afraid, where He leadeth I safely can go;
I will trust Him alway, both by night and by day, He’ll be with me forever, I know.

I’ll not be afraid when the grave I shall see— just beyond its dark shadow is rest;
And the welcome of angels is waiting for me, when I enter those realms of the blest.
I’ll not be afraid, I’ll not be afraid, where He leadeth I safely can go;
I will trust Him alway, both by night and by day, He’ll be with me forever, I know.

1 Corinthians 15:14,17-19 “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain....And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

Jet engines are wonderful examples of engineering; such a simple idea with such a complex method of achieving the goal (or rather, thrust). To attain movement, the engine draws or sucks in air, which it then compresses or squeezes. Then the air is heated up and with the addition of fuel, is burned. Due to this increase in heat, the air expands rapidly, blowing out the exhaust nozzle at a tremendous speed, propelling the airplane forward. However, to get this process requires numerous highly machined blades, exquisitely designed gears and shafts, tediously installed fuel lines and nozzles, and meticulously balanced aerodynamic loads. If any one part fails, the whole machine fails (usually with dramatic results). It is the same with Christianity. If any one part is false, the whole thing is worthless. If the cornerstone fails, the building falls.

Talking to an atheist with whom I work, he made the comment that you can't scientifically prove the resurrection of Jesus. Josh McDowell in his book More than a Carpenter addresses this very well. He says that science (well, the scientific method) can only prove events or hypotheses that are repeatable. One time events can not be proved through the scientific method. How then can we repeat Christ's death and resurrection to prove that it happened? We can not! That leaves us with either it happened or it didn't happen. We can try and prove that it did happen, or we can try and prove (archaeologically and historically) that it didn't. To prove that it did happen means that we need to prove every detail starting with His birth, His life, His ministry, His betrayal and capture, His death sentence, His entombment, the broken stone, the appearing to believers, and finally His ascension. To disprove it, all we need to do is find one problem, one fault, and everything would fly to pieces. Which is easier?

C.S. Lewis posed his famous trilemma, “Is He (Jesus) a liar, a lunatic, or Lord?” If He was not the son of God, born to a virgin, He must be a liar. If He did not rise from the dead, He was a misguided lunatic. If we can not find any faults, any problems then He must be what He said He was, Lord. So far no one has ever proven any part of the Bible wrong! Since this is so, Christ must be Lord and He did rise from the dead, paying the redemption price for all of us.

With this, how can we not live as best as we can? How can we not try and emulate our Saviour in His life? How can we deny Him anything He asks of us? We may not be perfect, but we can thank God anyways for sending Jesus and forgiving us. Let us follow Paul's advice in 1 Corinthians 15:34 “Wake up ... and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God.”

He is Risen!

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus’ Name.

His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the o'er whelming flood.
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my Hope and Stay.

Matthew 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.”

Last week I made soup. I made a lovely French onion soup full of healthy onions, garlic, cheese, and fancy toasted breadcrumbs; and salt – I also used salt. I packed the soup up into containers and took it to work with me where I was going to eat it for lunch. Lunchtime came around and I reheated my soup. I grabbed my spoon and took a slurp. Yuck. I did not use enough salt! I needed more salt to make the soup taste better.

I like to eat. I am sure that there is no surprise there because we all enjoy eating - especially food that tastes good. Oh yes! we all really like eating various foods that taste good. That is why we have so many restaurants of so many styles of cooking. There are Mexican, Chinese, Italian, and French restaurants. There are burger joints, cafeterias, ritzy 5 stars, fast food, hot dog stands, sandwich shops, cafe's, and more for people out looking for a good taste. All these places use salt to enhance the flavor of the various foods,

Salt is an important part of any meal. Salt makes roasted peanuts taste better, it enhances and enriches limp, boiled carrots. Salt gives some zest to ground beef, and it gives flavor to cardboard-like ramen. Without salt, most foods would not taste very good.

Without salt, you would die of dehydration in the desert. Without salt, your body could not regulate it's fluid levels. Without salt your sweat would not work as well to cool you off. Salt is necessary for a more enjoyable life. Can you image life without salt. I can image living without a lot of things. I can live without sugar. I don't mind not having chocolate. I could probably even go without coffee or tea, but I need salt.

In this passage of Matthew, our Lord compares us, His followers, to salt. At the time, salt was valuable. Salt was important. Sometimes in lieu of money, roman soldiers would be paid in salt (thus the phrase “worth his salt”) but I digress. Christ told us that we are the salt of the earth. We are the flavoring, the spice, the necessary ingredient for balance and to prevent the spiritual dehydration of this world. We are what enriches and emboldens the life experiences of our planet's population. This is good as long as we are fresh and true to what salt is. This is good and true for as long as we truly act and live as Christ told us to. Salt can loose it's flavor. I know because I have a little can of salt in my cupboard that has “expired” its just plain rocks with no taste. I found out that this little can of salt has no taste after I made my soup. I knew I put salt in there. Did I put enough salt in though? When I came home I tasted the salt and I found that even though I had put salt into my soup, the salt I used had no flavor, no taste. Despite the garlic and the onions, the water, the cheese, the croûtons, and the other spices which I put in, for lack of good salt my soup was not very enjoyable.

Often times we find ourselves acting like the people around us. We fit in and suddenly we don't really have anything special to add to the recipe. We become useless. When we focus on Christ and what He wants, how He desires and bids us live, then we can be a positive influence. At work, a group of us were talking after all the planes had left the hanger for their flights to San Francisco, to Dallas, to New York, to Chicago, and other destinations. One guy stopped, looked at me and said “You know, I would have said something and have used some words, but I see your tool box and I know you are a Christian, and I couldn't say it!”

Lets be good salt! If we are, then things will change around us and things will be influenced for the better, even when we don't know it!

Matthew 5:11-12 "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Over the course of this past week, I have been thinking a lot about community. Now while I could go into great depths on how we are going to be persecuted and revile, how we are going to be slandered, etc, I shan't. Instead lets look at this as an opportunity. This is an opportunity for the believers around us to gather encouragement. This is an opportunity for those who have yet to know Christ to see believers in action. This is a chance for those of the world to see true unity. Yet we often times do not see the unity even among ourselves. Rejoice and be glad that we have people around us to share in our pains.

Can you imagine what it would be like to have no one to encourage you when you suffer? Can you think of what it would be like to feel that the only person who is going through what you are going through is you? This is why Christ gave us the church. This is partly why He told us to fellowship together. It is when we gather together as a community that we can assist each other. Only those who know truly what it is like to follow in Christs footsteps can truly rejoice with us, can cry with us, and can encourage us. In Ecclesiastes 4:12, we are told that a cord of three strands is not easily broken after being told that one man against another will likely be defeated. This just illustrates how important it is to have a fellowship base to be there with you when you suffer defeat after defeat after defeat (in our eyes).

Remember that if the world killed the prophets, if the world crucified Jesus, if the world tormented the disciples, if the world martyred those who went forth to speak the name of Christ, will it stop trying to abuse us, or will it bring its full weight to bear oppression down on us?

Yet rejoice! We are counted worthy to be as Christ. We are worthy to be oppressed. No one badgers an opponent who is not considered a threat! Yes we are indeed a threat. We are a threat to lies, we are a threat to dishonesty, we are a threat to hatred, we are a threat to the solitary nature of sin, we are a threat to Satan, because he wants to hurt God the only way he has left which is to deny our Lord the very souls of those He gave is life for.

It is in such times of oppression and victimization, of mistreatment and harassment, of torment and teasing that our community of believers is there to stand with us and to encourage us to remember that “This too shall pass” We can deny the fallen one that which he desires, and that is why he pesters us, all of us. If we weren't a threat, he would not waste his time, so lets rejoice and count ourselves worthy that we may suffer because He lives!

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because He lives, All fear is gone.
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living just because He lives.

Trust

So, this isn't your normal contributor, who's currently on the road and so has asked me to contribute this week.  I hope none of you mind- I will probably have a substantially different style.  Also, if you read this in the next few hours after posting, please pray for his safe travel.  

I wasn't really sure what I wanted to write about when I was asked to write this, but I decided to write about a tangent of what I've been learning and relearning for about six or seven years now- just how much we can trust God and how much He loves us.  Forgive me if it is a bit rambling, as this is a bit more of a testimonial than the exegesis that is Carter's normal format. 

One of my favorite passages is Romans 8, but I've always concentrated on the part towards the end, starting in verse 28.  Something I've been thinking about, though has made me look to even more passages to see just how much God loves me.

As I've grown in Christ, I think that the way I've gotten to know him more is through seeing Him in the roles He takes towards me.  The first role that I associated Christ with was that of Savior, when I became a Christian at a young age.  Later on, I began to realize that not only had God saved me from my sins' consequence of death and Hell, but had provided me with both the command and ability to live for Him- I came to see that He was not only my Savior, but my Lord.

In high school, as I went through a traumatic time in my life, I began to realize that God was not just Savior and Lord to me.  As I read Romans (and, honestly, George Orwell's 1984), I began to understand just how much I needed Christ in my everyday life, not just for salvation, but for sustenance- if God wasn't involved in every second of my day, I didn't see it as worth living.  While before high school I had unconsciously seen God as Someone who saved us and said, "meet you in Heaven!" I now realized that just as eternal life begins when we are saved, so Christ is intimately involved in every part of our lives right now.  In Romans 8:32, Paul reasons that if God loved us so much that He would kill His own Son for us, how much more will God take care of the little things in our lives, the things we mistakenly think are too small to "bother" God about.  He cares about every part of our lives, on a level that not even our spouses ever will.  Things we might find wonderful about life, or just something we find neat about our life that, if we tell our friends or family about, they will not be impressed with or care much about matter to God.  It is amazing to me that we can tell Him these things.

It so happens that I am a Biblical Studies major, and I've been taking a class on Christian doctrines, as well as being mentored by my university's missionary-in-residence.  In both arenas, as well as a private conversation lately, the discussion of how to be saved has come up, with me being convinced that belief and trust in Christ as Savior is how we are saved, but I have found doubt in this idea from many around me.  I had a conversation today with someone not convinced, I don't think that nothing can separate us from Christ.  This kind of belief system, I think, builds fear and erodes at our belief in God's greatest gift to us- salvation by grace through faith alone, not of works, so I'm going to go into a bit of what I've been learning from different passages of Scripture regarding this.

When someone believes that if they sin so much, or do some particular sin, they begin to try to work hard to make sure that they are saved, as works are what they see as the proof of their salvation.  They begin to do good works out of guilt- if they don't do them, are they really saved?  Do they really have a proof of election?  The cycle of guilt continues, however, even if they manage to do enough works that one would think that they had proved their salvation, as they feel guilt for why they did their works- instead of doing them out of love, they did them out of fear- fear that if they didn't perform, they were not Christians.  This is a terrible place to be, but I think many Christians approach this position at one point in their life or another.  It is this situation, I think, that prompts John, in 1 John 4:18 when he says that "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love."  When we understand God's love for us and the totality of what He has done for us, how He has bought and redeemed and purified us, we no longer fear God as someone who will punish us- He still may punish us, temporally, of course, but as a good father punishes his child, with that child's best interest in mind, but that is not what the child thinks of as the main aspect of the father, nor is punishment the biggest reason that the child will avoid disobedience in the future.  Both the child and the understanding Christian now performs what is expected not out of fear of punishment but out of love for the father/Father.

This, of course, requires trust- trust in God's love for us.  Trust that God loves us more than we can imagine in the same way that we love our children- trust that banishes fear.  We have to trust God, as difficult as it may be, when He says that we have the adoption as sons that He promised that we now have.  I want to end this devotional with some quotations:

John tells us that we are saved when we are born of the spirit.  Paul describes this spirit in Romans 8:15, 16: "For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba! Father! 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God"

And back again to the passage I love that tells me how much God loves me: Romans 8:28-39.  "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Finally, what this trust in Christ gives me:

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! 

O what a foretaste of glory divine! 

Heir of salvation, purchase of God, 

born of his Spirit, washed in his blood. 

This is my story, this is my song, 

praising my Savior all the day long; 

this is my story, this is my song, 

praising my Savior all the day long.

- Chris O. From Tokyo, Japan -