Priorities and challenges for the next 50 years

Christianity Today asked 114 leaders from 11 ministry spheres about evangelical priorities for the next 50 years. Check out: What's Next: Evangelism | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Christian Lending Library in India

Back in March 2006 in my post Hungry for Books Overseas, I raised the issue of Christians in far away places where Christianity is not the dominant religion who are hungry for Christian reading material. I mentioned that there is a whole warehouse of books at the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge just lacking the money to ship the books to those English speaking Christians who desire the books. I am sure their are books on your shelf or entire libraries of books from retired pastors that could be put to great use overseas.

The Christian Communication Centre, for example, offers lending libraries to Christians and seekers in many cities in India. Check out the Christian Communication Centre's new blog to see how you can support their efforts. For your information, it costs about $1 per pound to ship a "book bag" by surface (ship) to India. Please contact me by email if you feel lead to support this effort financially.

Certain of What We Do Not See

Hebrews 11:1

NIV

1Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

NASB

1Now faith is the ^(A)assurance of things ^(B)hoped for, the conviction of ^(C)things not seen.

The Message

1-2The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.

The Amplified Bible

1NOW FAITH is the assurance (the confirmation, ^[a]the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].

You can get the wall paper image yourself here.

Do You Really Believe In the Rapture?

I got an email from a cousin of mine pointing me to this free video on YouTube depicting what the Rapture might be like. I think it is primarily intended to reach teenage non-believers but I think it also challenges all believers as to whether or not we really believe the Bible is literally true and whether we believe the events of the Second Coming of Christ are really going to happen. Check it out.

The Bible vs. Your Cell Phone

I don't know the source of this, but when I got it from a friend in an email, I had to post it for all to see. Maybe we all need to recharge our Biblical batteries.

Bible vs. Cell Phone

I wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our cell phones?

What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets?

What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?

What if we flipped through it several times a day?

What if we used it to receive messages from the text?

What if we treated it like we couldn't live without it?

What if we gave it to kids as gifts?

What if we used it as we traveled?

What if we used it in case of an emergency?

What if we upgraded it to get the latest version?

This is something to make you go...hmmm...where is my Bible?

Oh, and one more thing. Unlike our cell phone, we don't ever have to worry about our Bible being disconnected because Jesus already paid the bill!

Preparation for His Purposes

My blogger friend Donny Prater shares a great lesson for all of us about how God can prepare us for His purposes without us realizing it at the time. See A Man Coming Alive in christ: A Writing Revelation

"Did you ever have a moment of revelation? You know what I mean, it's when out of the blue your mind starts to wander and then, like a bolt of lightening, an idea pops into your head and just clicks"

God Can Use Your Voice Mail Greeting

A Man Coming Alive in christ: Leave Your Phone On, God Might Call.....

Check out the post above on Donny Prater's "A Man Coming Alive" blog that talks about how God used one man's cell phone voice mail greeting to save one and possibly two lives.

A Much Needed Reminder That God Can and Usually Prefers to Use Ordinary People

It appears that according to the Bible our willingness to allow God to lead us and use us is more important than whether others would consider us qualified, talented enough, or whether we have the right credentials.

Read on...

1 Corinthians 1:26-31 (New International Version)

26Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29so that no one may boast before him. 30It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."^[a]

Here is a modern paraphrase that strikes home...

1 Corinthians 1:26-31 (The Message)

26-31Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don't see many of "the brightest and the best" among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies"? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That's why we have the saying, "If you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God."

The Joy of the Refining Fire

You know how when singing those old hymns with a lot of verses, the verses near the end but not the last verse are often skipped? We sang "How Firm a Foundation, Ye Saints of the Lord" on Sunday morning and included the fith verse. For some reason the last phrase about the dross and the gold in verse five jumped out at me.

Verse 5

"When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply.
The flames shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

It had been a while since I thought about the ancient process of separating the dross (impurities) from the valuable metal. Here are some references to “dross” from the NIV:

Psalm 119:119 All the wicked of the earth you discard like dross; therefore I love
your statutes.

Proverbs 25:4Remove the dross from the silver, and out comes material for the
silversmith;

Isaiah 1:22Your silver has become dross, your choice wine is diluted with
water.

Isaiah 1:25I will turn my hand against you; I will thoroughly purge away your dross
and remove all your impurities.

Ezekiel 22:18"Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to me; all of them
are the copper, tin, iron and lead left inside a furnace. They are but the
dross of silver.

Ezekiel 22:19Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: 'Because you have all
become dross, I will gather you into Jerusalem.

I was also lead to this portion of the Bible which assures us that we as Christians will suffer trials but through them we’ll be stronger or “refined.”

1 Peter 1:6-8 (New International Version)
6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,

Back from a Long Blogging Hiatus

I am hopefully back from a long blogging hiatus.  Things just got a little crazy for a couple of weeks at work and at home.  I spent a lot of extra mental energy at work for a couple of weeks on a special project.  It was fun and I learned a good bit while I was at it but it suffocated my blogging-related brain cells.  I also spent numerous weekend hours braving the June and July heat in Nashville to scratch a couple of items off my “honey do list.”  These items were however only belatedly off the list as I was reminded “if you’d done it earlier in the year it wouldn’t have been so hot.”  Also during this time I have been trying to take better care of myself and get some much needed exercize on weeknights.  Put those three things together and you have very few discretionary hours left for blogging.  Surely, I am not the only blogger to have this problem?