If it cost me nothing, then it has cost me everything.

So here I am preparing to go on another mission trip. I plan to go back to Honduras and don't think for one second I have forgotten about Kenya, I still long for it everyday at it crosses my mind. I know that day will come, but I also feel that for right now I can invest in others and grow if my faith as I embark on another trip to Honduras. I hope that in this trip I use my skills in investing in individuals and am able to take more of a leadership role. Now to the title of this post. The statement seems in many ways to be self contradicting. Yet I believe that this is a idea that is clearly made through out the entire New Testament. Allow me to explain. Just from the simple idea that Jesus had to die on the cross for our sins should validate the idea. If he would have never went to that cross, then his entire purpose would have been lost. His coming to this earth would have been miraculous, but he would have been know as just another teacher, healer, and prophet. Not that I am ever saying that would have happened. God in his Sovereign Good Pleasure both allowed and foreknew it was going to happen. We also take what the disciples and the early church leaders went through. Most of them were persecuted and exiled from their communities and families. If you have not figured it out by now, Yes this is another post about suffering. I wanted to say something about it again for two reasons. One I believe that it is so foreign to the theology of the average Christian today and two part of me longs to be called worthy to suffer for the name of Christ. It is not like I like struggling and hurting in many ways of my life, but I have started to understand that through scripture, life experience, and the conviction of the Holy Spirit that suffer for his glory is a way for the believer to strengthen his or her identity with Christ. Now back to the idea of another trip and doing missions long term. I still have bills to pay, things I need and not a whole lot of money. These things cost money and always seem to get provided for, but what if they didn't, what if one trip to share the Gospel with people I don't even know would cost me every last penny after selling everything I have on this earth. Would it still be worth it? Yes! You will never be able to put a price on a soul and you can't put a price on faithfulness. Using reverse logic we can make the statement say this: "If it cost me everything, then it has cost me nothing." This is true, because at that point it is all about God's Glory.

Kicking and Screaming all the way.....

Recently I ran across this commentary that really stuck out to me. We were reading through Romans and I was reading up on somethings in a new study bible I had. The text was Romans 7:24 "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" ESV. The verse is straight forward for the most sense he is wretched and needs to be delivered from his body. If you dig deeper into the original meaning of the text we find something more. So what does it mean to be delivered? As with many words in the Bible this Word comes from a military term/ idea. In the original Greek it gives the idea that someone is pulling a wounded solider out of the battlefield. With that picture in mind I find it comical, strange, and just plain stupid how we react to being delivered. I'm reminded of the classic scene in the movie Forrest Gump, it is when the "Charlie" hits his platoon. There are guns shooting everywhere. Forest begins to brings others to safety. Then he comes upon Leutinet Dan, wounded and calling in a air strike he pleads with Forrest just to leave him there. Forest picks him up and starts to carry him out, on the way Forrest gets hit the both fall. When the dust clears Forrest drags Lt. Dan out by one arm, as Dan is shooting back with all the fight he has. Later in the movie we learn that Lt.Dan's plan is to die on the battlefield. We act just like Lt. Dan far too often. We fuss and complain, for some stupid reason we think we can face sin all on our own (in our own ability). Before we know it we are in a battle and we are surrounded. We finally call on God to help us (Pray, when he has been taking the bullets the whole time) and when he delivers us, we go out kicking and screaming like the temper tantrum of a 3 year old. I know to some the imagery I used might be a bit of a stretch, but to me it makes all kind of since. Sometimes I just want to be Lt. Dan wounded, helpless, running low on ammo, the enemy is gaining, calling in help and upon helping pulling me out, well I just grab stick and rocks....anything I can that won't even phase the enemy. All while live bullets are being fired in my direction. Can you see it now, you are dragged to safety and your savior collapses on the ground, rittled with bullets all of which were intended for you. Dying you see his face and he says: "I love you this much!" Anyway I want to retell it, or relate it, or straight up proclaim it, the end is always the same. Jesus died on a Cross to save sinners in a lost and dying world.

Uniquely created

So, as I have posted last month I have 2 yappy little birds, they are both a little over a year old and are a mated pair. Almost ever since I have had them, they have been attempting to reproduce. Well, all of this work has payed off for Simba and Paka. There is now a little nest in the box that I provided for them, it now has 5 eggs as of right now. From candling (holding a light up to the egg to make the inside glow) It seems that at least 3 of those eggs are fertile. You can see little veins on the inside of the egg. You make ask what is so amazing about an egg? Well the birds can now not have to carry around all that weight for one things, it helps them fly. On top of that I learned something really cool from watching a video on creation. As soon as the momma bird gets pregnant she starts to develop a small spot on her stomach where she losses feathers. Then that spot starts to increase by 5 times the number of blood vessels. The mother then uses this patch not to just warm the eggs, but some how get a reading on the temperature of those eggs. Then she can make adjustments according to that information. So don't get mad when I laugh at you when you tell me things evolved.    

Danger, danger......

Sometimes there are those talks that inspire post and this is one of those times. Recently a friend and myself were having a very relaxed discussion on the TULIP debate. It was one of those debates that reminded me of one of the hidden dangers of taken certain theological views to the extreme. This would be the extreme view of becoming a fatalist. In lighter terms it would be the idea that as humans we are like a software programs that will only do exactly as we are pre-programed to do. I feel that this is a non-biblical idea and if this we so, then what would even be the purpose of Evangelism? I may now have the entire debate completely figured out, but I do have the understanding that there are (as I understand it) theological errors in holding to tightly to "man's" understanding of how God works. As Francis Chan illustrates. "Attempting to understand God is like standing in the ocean with a water bottle, filling it up and then saying 'that is what the entire ocean looks like'." The truth is that God is so much bigger than I could even understand him to be.