Tag: trust

Getting to Know Your “Sheepiness”

I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep, and they know me. 

–John 10:14

The shepherds of Israel have a custom of marking their sheep to make them distinct from each other.  Each bears a unique notch or brand that makes them distinguishable from their companions.  It is not done for aesthetics, but recognition.  Christ gives each person who follows Him a certain recognizable characteristic.  He “knows His sheep.”

He recognizes their faces.  All have a common demeanor, a family resemblance.  No matter where they go, they are marked as His follower.  The Prodigal fed the pigs from his abject poverty, yet he belonged to his Father.  Our voices also mark us, they are recognizable by those who are aware.  When we speak there is a heavenly inflection and tone.  I have a dear friend from Tennesee, and he couldn’t pretend to be from Boston.  You might say we have a believer’s accent that IDs us as His own.

Last of all, He knows us by our hearts.  Peter was one who not only betrayed his Lord, but he betrayed himself.  He was not quite Peter the Rock, but Peter the weak.  Jesus sees our hearts, the flaws and weaknesses are quite obvious to Him.  We may feel like we are damaged goods.  But His power to transform is legendary and without peer.

Jesus knows His sheep, He just does not tend the best, but seeks out the least.  All who are weak and pathetic are cared for with a tender love.  Those of us who are flawed and lame are given preferential treatment, but all are loved, all needs are met.

We have no power without Jesus as our Shepherd to lead  us.  We cannot manage on our own.  Solitary sheep are nothing more than a wooly snack for predators, or they will fall desperately seeking pasture.  I encourage each to merge with a local flock, a group of imperfect believers who are following the Shepherd of love.

“The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
       he leads me beside quiet waters,

 3 he restores my soul.
       He guides me in paths of righteousness
       for his name’s sake.”

 Psalm 23:1-3

ybic, Bryan

Christian, Where is Your Umbrella?

Sometime ago there was a town which had experienced a prolonged and difficult drought. There was no water to be found for crops and livestock, and hardly enough for the people of this once prosperous village.

There was nothing to be done, and is often the case the town fathers finally turned to the churches for help. This usually happens when no other solution can be found.

 The pastors met and after much discussion came to a decision on a course of action. They decided to call together the people of faith to come in one place and beseech God to send rain. The thinking was if they could get all the people in a single spot, and if all of them combined their prayer, God might move, and turn on the spigots of heaven.

 A time was set and promptly announced throughout the town. The pastors requested that everyone who gathered at the town square should bring with them some item of devotion. When everyone gathered–en masse, they filled the square to overflowing. The pastors were amazed and blessed, not only by the great turnout but by all the crosses and crucifixes, the icons, the rosaries and Bibles that the people brought with them.

 At the appointed end of this gathering, the speaker implored the Lord for mercy. In that very moment, it started to thunder. All of a sudden, it began to rain. The people shouted, and waved their crosses and beads, and their holy books. Some danced and leaped for joy. In the middle of the crowd, one item held up by a nine year old boy gripped the attention of everyone. He lifted up his umbrella.

………………

 I honestly don’t know if this story actually happened. But I do know faith is a powerful thing. It is that utter confidence that God is going to do something, and then being rewarded when it actually happens.

As people who struggle with mental disorders or other chronic illnesses, we need to know that our God is alive and that he wants to get involved in our lives. Those family and friends who support us also need that assurance.

 We must approach God by faith (Hebrews 11:1) and believe is going to reward us (v. 6). Being a person of faith is to be audacious and daring. It is to live life as if it were an adventure of faith. You may continue to be ill and struggle, but you will live life bold and free.

ybic, Bryan

 

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DOA: How Faith Killed My Faith in Atheism

(In this essay, writer Lee Strobel offers his defense of Easter.)

It was the worst news I could get as an atheist: my agnostic wife had decided to become a Christian. Two words shot through my mind. The first was an expletive; the second was “divorce.”

I thought she was going to turn into a self-righteous holy roller. But over the following months, I was intrigued by the positive changes in her character and values. Finally, I decided to take my journalism and legal training (I was legal editor of the Chicago Tribune) and systematically investigate whether there was any credibility to Christianity.

Maybe, I figured, I could extricate her from this cult.

I quickly determined that the alleged resurrection of Jesus was the key. Anyone can claim to be divine, but if Jesus backed up his claim by returning from the dead, then that was awfully good evidence he was telling the truth.

For nearly two years, I explored the minutia of the historical data on whether Easter was myth or reality. I didn’t merely accept the New Testament at face value; I was determined only to consider facts that were well-supported historically. As my investigation unfolded, my atheism began to buckle.

Was Jesus really executed? In my opinion, the evidence is so strong that even atheist historian Gerd Lüdemann said his death by crucifixion was “indisputable.”

Was Jesus’ tomb empty? Scholar William Lane Craig points out that its location was known to Christians and non-Christians alike. So if it hadn’t been empty, it would have been impossible for a movement founded on the resurrection to have exploded into existence in the same city where Jesus had been publicly executed just a few weeks before.

Besides, even Jesus’ opponents implicitly admitted the tomb was vacant by saying that his body had been stolen. But nobody had a motive for taking the body, especially the disciples. They wouldn’t have been willing to die brutal martyrs’ deaths if they knew this was all a lie.

Did anyone see Jesus alive again? I have identified at least eight ancient sources, both inside and outside the New Testament, that in my view confirm the apostles’ conviction that they encountered the resurrected Christ. Repeatedly, these sources stood strong when I tried to discredit them.

Could these encounters have been hallucinations? No way, experts told me. Hallucinations occur in individual brains, like dreams, yet, according to the Bible, Jesus appeared to groups of people on three different occasions – including 500 at once!

Was this some other sort of vision, perhaps prompted by the apostles’ grief over their leader’s execution? This wouldn’t explain the dramatic conversion of Saul, an opponent of Christians, or James, the once-skeptical half-brother of Jesus.

Neither was primed for a vision, yet each saw the risen Jesus and later died proclaiming he had appeared to him. Besides, if these were visions, the body would still have been in the tomb.

Was the resurrection simply the recasting of ancient mythology, akin to the fanciful tales of Osiris or Mithras? If you want to see a historian laugh out loud, bring up that kind of pop-culture nonsense.

One by one, my objections evaporated. I read books by skeptics, but their counter-arguments crumbled under the weight of the historical data. No wonder atheists so often come up short in scholarly debates over the resurrection.

In the end, after I had thoroughly investigated the matter, I reached an unexpected conclusion: it would actually take more faith to maintain my atheism than to become a follower of Jesus.

And that’s why I’m now celebrating my 30th Easter as a Christian. Not because of wishful thinking, the fear of death, or the need for a psychological crutch, but because of the facts.

*******

Lee Strobel wrote “The Case for Easter: Journalist Investigates the Evidence for the Resurrection“; his first novel, “The Ambition,” releases May 17.

Please check out some really great stuff at “Speak Easy” from the WSJ.  This was taken, and should be greatly acknowledged from http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/04/16/how-easter-killed-my-faith-in-atheism/.  I discovered several interesting articles there and encourage all BB’ers to take a minute and check it all out.  Go WSJ!

Lee Strobel is a “hotshot” writer/thinker/ex-atheist who has embraced an evangelical faith.  In many circles he is recognized as a leader in the specifics of Apologetics.  He is worth reading.

You also may checkout Wikipedia.org about the “resurrection.”  The link is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_of_Jesus.  (Just a fleeting thought.  But it’s a bit interesting.)

 

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Safe in the Mouth of Danger

In my dream, I had a vision.

An angel of the Lord led me down to the depths of the sea.

“What do you see?” the angel asked.

I said, “I see a boy, a child, in the mouth of a shark!”

“Yes,” the angel said.

“But, he is terrified!” I said.

“He will be grateful,” the angel said. “Watch.”

As I gazed upon the frightened child, a great white suddenly attacked the shark. The child began to climb out of the mouth of the shark, but he had set his leg upon its jaws and the shark bit down and took off his leg. The child, however, was able to swim away safely because the great white was devouring the shark.

“How is this possible?” I asked the angel.

“Do you not know?” the angel responded. “Have you not heard? With God, all things are possible.”

“But,” I said. “Why was the child not spared this danger in the first place?”

“You will see,” the angel said. “Come.”

A moment later, we were on dry ground.

“Was that real?” I asked. “I am disillusioned.”

“What do you see?” the angel asked.

“My leg is gone!” I proclaimed. “I was the child!”

“Yes,” the angel said.

“But,” I said. “How can I live without my leg? I lost my leg!”

“But, you did not lose you,” the angel said. “And that is precisely what would have happened had you not lost your leg. If the shark had not swallowed you whole, the great white would have attacked you from the side. You would have been devoured and destroyed. Instead, you have been spared.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why have I been spared? Why am I still here? Why must I suffer so much?”

“You suffer,” the angel said. “Indeed, you exist, to give hope. Now, go. And teach God’s children how to walk with a limp. Strengthen your brothers. Encourage your sisters. Show them how to survive A Dark & Stormy Night.”

“Yes, my lord,” I said, bowing my head in respect as the angel vanished from my sight.

When I woke up, I recorded my vision, that my brothers and my sisters may yet understand why they, too, must walk with a limp.

“Do you not know? Have you not heard?
“With God, all things are possible.”