Love Is a Good Thing

Our family's challenging season of life continues to steamroll over us as we witness the deterioration of Sabrina's mom's health due to the ravages of oral cancer. She is now in hospice care at home and we really don't expect her life to be extended all that much longer. We are encouraged that she will soon be with Jesus and free of the cruel imprisonment of cancer. It has been hard to watch her go this way and so, so sudden.

Yesterday, I was out walking and listening to a song by Andrew Peterson from his recently released Resurrection Letters Volume II album. It is called "Love Is a Good Thing" and prompted me to reflect on what God is trying to teach us when it comes to loving others through a difficult season of life. Quite honestly, the song moved me to tears. I so often want to learn how to love like Jesus in the "packaging" I'd prefer, usually the packages with soft edges and lots of bubble wrap inside to cushion the blows. His plans are usually vastly different from mine, often involve much more creatively painful refining in His furnace, but yield far better and lasting results for Kingdom living in the end. I'll just leave you with the lyrics and a little explanation of the song from Andrew himself.



Love Is a Good Thing
It knocked me down, it dragged me out, it left me there for dead.
It took all the freedom I wanted and gave me something else instead.
It blew my mind, it bled me dry, it hit me like a long goodbye,
And nobody here knows better than I that it's a good thing;
Love is a good thing.

It'll fall like rain on your parade, laugh at the plans that you tried to make;
It'll wear you down till your heart just breaks and it's a good thing.
Love is a good thing.

It'll wake you up in the middle of the night, it'll take just a little too much.
It'll burn you like a cinder till you're tender to the touch.
It'll chase you down, and swallow you whole;
It'll make your blood run hot and cold.
Like a thief in the night it'll steal your soul, and that's a good thing
Love is a good thing.

It'll follow you down to the ruin of your great divide,
And open the wounds that you tried to hide;
And there in the rubble of your heart that died,
You'll find a good thing;
Love is a good thing

Take cover, the end is near.
Take cover, do not fear.
It'll break your will, it'll change your mind
It'll loose all the chains of the ties that bind.
If you're lucky you'll never make it out alive, and that's a good thing
Love is a good thing.

It can hurt like a blast from a hand grenade
When all that used to matter is blown away;
There in the middle of the mess it made you'll find a good thing
Yes, it's worth every penny of the price you paid
It's a good thing
Love is a good thing, love is a good thing
Do not fear.

Innocents Staggering Toward Slaughter

"We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."
(Barack Obama from his inaugural address on January 20, 2009)

On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the case that resulted in the landmark decision concerning abortion in this country on January 22, 1973, I found it eerily ironic that our new President could be so audacious as to rally the nation to battle against forces that would seek to "slaughter the innocent." Meanwhile, the quill of his presidential pen is being sharpened to sign the so-called Freedom of Choice Act, which would in one tragic move overturn virtually all pro-life laws nationwide. If such a sweeping pro-abortion agenda were successful, it would greatly increase the number of abortions. Just as our new "glorious leader" was recovering from his pre-inaugural luncheons with Oprah and post-inaugural ball dancing, he signed an executive order to repeal the Mexico City Policy, sometimes referred to as the "global gag rule," that during President Bush's tenure protected Americans from being required to fund groups that promote and pay for abortions around the globe. The plan was originated by President Reagan in 1984. It prohibited non-governmental organizations that receive federal funds from providing or promoting abortions in other nations. For an author who likes to write about the "audacity of hope," I thought this was an audaciously cruel and revealing thing to do just two days after his inauguration and just one day after the 36th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.

There is so much to reflect upon when it comes to abortion in our country and worldwide. I was recently reading over a sermon that Fr. Bill Mouser of Waxahatchie, Texas delivered to his congregation, which I will highlight below. I found many of his statistics very disturbing:

• " As John Piper once observed, in the United States today, you can be fined $5,000 and imprisoned for up to a year for breaking an eagle's egg and you can be imprisoned and fined for stealing a sea turtle egg, and yet our babies are being killed daily with little outcry."

• "Today, nationwide twenty-four out of every one hundred conceptions is aborted. In some places, such as New York City, that figure is forty out of every one hundred conceptions. In many parts of the city, there is one abortion for every live birth. The total number of deaths in America alone stands somewhere above 50 million at this time."

• "...we are living in a nation which has reproduced Hitler's holocaust within our own borders over eight times in the past 36 years. Worldwide, the toll today stands at something just over a billion souls since abortion statistics began to be compiled in the middle of the 20th century. Think of it! A billion human beings killed. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tse-Tung, Idi Amin--there is not one bloody tyrant you can name whose bloody work holds even a faint candle to the oceans of blood spilt in the slaughter of children in the past 36 years."

Shocking? Indeed! "Facts are stubborn things," John Adams once said. In this case, they are not only stubborn, but disturbing. As a Christian, I am called upon to pray for our leaders, whomever they turn out to be. As William Penn once said, "If a man is not governed by God, he will be governed by tyrants." In this case, my hope and prayer is that our newly elected leaders will see the error of their ways and be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. On the other hand, we are also called to be salt and light in a dark world that needs shepherding from a Good Shepherd. John the Baptist, a man Jesus himself referred to as the greatest prophet who ever lived (Luke 7:28), spoke out vociferously against the hypocritical religious and sinful political leaders of his day. A balance is called for in today's "cyber townhall forums," radio talk shows, and other venues, but the prophetic voice from the Scriptures must be articulated and heard!

In that regard, I will end this blog entry with a video clip I came across recently through a Facebook group I joined. Actress Jennifer O'Neill (an actress many will remember from the film "Summer of '42" and as a spokeswoman for Cover Girl cosmetics) discusses her own experience with abortion and the hope and healing she found through Jesus Christ, the Great Physician.

It Was Not a Silent Night

"It was not a silent night
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyway that night
On the streets of David's town
And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
Had no mother's hand to hold..."

These opening lines from Andrew Peterson's "Labor of Love" remind me well that Immanuel's entrance into the world via a stable in Bethlehem was anything but picturesque. In our culture, we love to sanitize our manger scenes with fresh straw, sparkling lights, and exquisitely designed figurines all positioned comfortably around the babe wrapped snugly in swaddling bands. If the truth be known though, we would be far more historically accurate if we included the suspicious, gossiping villagers from Nazareth around Mary and Joseph ("Virgin birth? Yea, right!"). Or how about paranoid Herod and his "infanticide squads," ready to slaughter all the innocents in Bethlehem, two years and under? Oh, and make sure you find a place for old Simeon, who, instead of bringing "It's a boy!" balloons to Mary, brought this bit of cheer: "Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul, also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." (Luke 2:34-35) Indeed even the Magi's triumvirate of gifts (gold, frankincense, and myrrh) spoke prophetically of the Christ's triple roles as king, priest, and prophet, the gift of myrrh a gum resin used as an embalming agent in those days.

Our own Christmas season has not been so neat and tidy this year either. Coming on the heels of my dad's death in June (via lung cancer) and the earlier news during the summer of 2007 that my mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer that had spread to other areas of her body, we found out this month that Sabrina's mom has been diagnosed with stage four oral cancer. Initially, the doctors had considered a surgery where they would essentially cut out her tongue, then replace it with muscle from her thigh. They have since decided to forgo that drastic step, and treat the cancer with chemo and radiation. She now has a feeding tube in her stomach and they are treating other complications at the hospital here in Portland. On top of that, there are other issues I won't go into here which make the family dynamics challenging, to say the least.

Spiritually speaking, we have been stretched to move beyond theoretical love to practical love each and every day. The Lord continues to work on us and others, teaching us to die to ourselves and take up our cross daily. In that light, I wanted to share some fantastic insights I've been gleaning from William L. Lane's superb commentary on the Gospel of Mark, particularly as he addresses the section in Mark 8:34-9:1:

"The humiliation of the Messiah, announced in Ch. 8:31, is the mysterious prototype of that of the Christian. But even as Jesus spoke of death followed by resurrection, his followers may look beyond a pagan tribunal to the tribunal of the Son of Man where loyalty to Jesus will be honored by vindication. This unit amounts to a call for complete and confident identification with Christ...Jesus stipulated that those who wish to follow him must be prepared to shift the center of gravity in their lives from a concern for self to reckless abandon to the will of God. The central thought in self-denial is a disowning of any claim that may be urged by the self, a sustained willingness to say 'No' to oneself in order to say 'Yes' to God. This involves a radical denunciation of all self-idolatry and of every attempt to establish one's own life in accordance with the dictates of the self. This demand is reinforced and intensified by the horrifying image of a death march. Bearing the cross was not a Jewish metaphor, and Jesus' statement may have sounded repugnant to the crowd and the disciples alike. The saying evokes the picture of a condemned man going out to die who is forced to carry on his back the cross-beam upon which he is to be nailed at the place of execution. By the time Mark prepared the Gospel this had become a cruel reality, both for Jesus and the Church. Jesus' words were a sober caution that the commitment for which he asked permitted no turning back, and if necessary, a willingness to submit to the cross in pursuance of the will of God. His followers must be prepared to die, for they share in the same veiledness that permits his own humiliation. The call to follow Jesus, which recapitulates the action in which self-denial and cross-bearing are to be manifested, provides a vivid reminder that suffering with the Messiah is the condition of glorification with him (Rom. 8:17)."

All You Could Ever Want

For unto us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

|| ISAIAH 9:6 || NRSV ||

"All we could ever imagine, could ever hope for, Jesus is. He is the wise royal Counselor who fills us with wonder, who holds the tangled story lines of history and will one day bring true understanding between all individuals and nations. He is the God of Might, whose power can accomplish any and every task his holiness demands. His power we need not fear for he is also the Father Eternal who is tenderness itself and who is ever motivated by his everlasting love for his children. Finally, he is the Prince of Peace whose first coming has already transformed society but whose second coming will forever establish justice and righteousness. All this, and infinitely more, alive in an impoverished baby in a barn.

That is what Christmas means--to find in a place where you would least expect anything you want, everything you could ever want."

(From Michael Card's "Devotions in the Studio" December 2008/Show #350)

Tim Meets Spurgeon in Duckland!

One of the more humorous ironies of looking back on my days at the University of Oregon has to do with the main library on campus. When you approach it from the front, you'll notice large letters on both sides of the entrance that quote Jesus from John 8:32: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Now if you know anything about Eugene in general and a college education there in particular, you'll find it amusing that the quote is still there today. Having ripped the war memorial cross down from the top of Skinner's Butte, I'm amazed that the "honor diversity" crowd in Oregon's second most populous city would stand for such a thing. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the library was renamed the "Knight Library" (funding compliments of Phil Knight, founder of Nike). I can assure you, though, that the "freedom" they suggest emanates from their professors and "higher learning" there is far from the kind of liberty or truth Jesus spoke of in the original context when he was responding to his Jewish followers. That being said, I did discover a set of old, musty books in that library that encouraged me and introduced me to someone I had, up to that point in the early 1980's, never known about: Charles Spurgeon.

Known as the "Prince of Preachers," Charles Haddon Spurgeon was to nineteenth-century England what D.L. Moody was to America. Although Spurgeon never attended theological school, by the age of twenty-one he was the most popular preacher in London. It is with great fondness that I look back on those college years in Eugene, when the Lord faithfully provided a set of sermons to one of his younglings struggling to trek his way through the obstacle course of an education laden with the truth enumerated in Romans 1:21-22 ("...but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools...")

Here is an excerpt from one of his sermons ("Christ Precious to Believers"):

“Those who declare that the ancient valor of the church is departed, know not what they say. The professing church may have lost some of its masculine vigor; the professors of this day may be but effeminate dwarfs, the offspring of glorious fathers; but the true church, the elect out of the professing church, the remnant whom God hath chosen, are as much in love with Jesus as the saints of yore, and are as ready to suffer and to die. We challenge hell and its incarnate representative, old Rome herself; let her build her dungeons, let her revive her inquisitions, let her once more get power in the state to cut, and mangle, and burn; we are still able to possess our souls in patience. We sometimes feel it were a good thing if persecuting days should come again, to try the church once more, and drive away her chaff, and make her like a goodly heap of wheat, all pure and clean.”

The Prodigal Continent

I was recently listening to one of my favorite podcasts (All Souls Church, Langham Place), when David Turner was sharing a message from the New Testament book of Acts concerning the state of Christianity in Europe, especially in relationship to the rest of the world. He cited Patrick Johnstone, one of the editors of the marvelous Operation World, as referring to Europe as the "prodigal continent," due to the post-Christian worldview that now exists throughout much of the continent.

Here are just a few tidbits of intriguing information I gleaned as I listened and took notes:

1. In the mid-20th century, the gospel really moved east and south. For the first time since the Reformation, 70% of the world's Christians live outside the West and North.

2. In 1900, there were 380 million Christians in Europe; there were less than 10 million in Africa. Today, there are 370 million Christians in Africa...that's 1/5 of the world's Christians.

3. Today there are more evangelicals in Nepal than in Spain.

4. The typical Christian is no longer an affluent, white, and British Anglican male around 45 years of age, but a poor black Pentecostal woman of around 25.

5. The largest congregation in Britain is a Pentecostal church led by a Nigerian.

6. The largest congregation in the world is probably in
South Korea--the Yoido Full Gospel Church
in Seoul--presently at 700,000 members. The church's origin can be traced back to 1958, when five people started meeting in a living room in South Korea.

7. The fastest growing church ever is thought to be the church in China, estimated at some 90 million believers.

Mr. Turner concludes his talk by saying this:

"...Europe is not what is was...Yes, Europe has a soul, a soul imbued by the Christian faith. But the neglect of that soul is meaning that it is shriveling...Europe today is a place of believing without belonging, or restlessness, or searching...it needs the Gospel again..."

I couldn't help but draw the comparison between Europe and the country where I live. We are probably pretty close, if not right where Europe is today when it comes to Christianity and the general value our culture places on the worldview and claims presented in the life, teachings, mission, work, and call of Christ.

Maybe C.S. Lewis was a little too prophetic with this pithy statement:

"You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body."

Hamas Leader's Son Turns to Christ

I recently read the following news story on the Jerusalem Post's news website. It is an interview of the son of a Hamas leader who converted to Christ while imprisoned by the Israeli government. I thought it was an intriguing look inside the hidden world of power struggles within the prison environment in the Middle East and how very much it reminded me of the spiritual transformations we read of constantly in the Book of
Acts. God continues to work in the most unlikely of places, and it is clear He has an undying love and plan for every tongue and tribe under the sun to hear of the Son!