Notes of Faith September 15, 2021

Amazing prophecies of God’s plans for the world can be found embedded in the customs of the feasts of Israel. The intricate detail of the prophecies illustrated in the observances of these feasts provide insight into God’s plan for the ages. On the evening of September 15th Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, begins and it continues through the evening of the 16th. For Jews, it is a day of repentance to God often observed by 25 hours of fasting, going to synagogue and praying. Yom Kippur is considered the holiest day of the year and it brings an end to the High Holy days for the year. Earlier this year for Passover we shared an excerpt of Unlocking The Secrets Of The Feasts, which was received with overwhelming response. Enjoy this excerpt for Yom Kippur and learn more about the significance of the Jewish festivals that Jesus would have observed in His time on Earth.

The Second of the Fall Feasts

The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) follows closely after Rosh Hashanah. We read in Leviticus 23:26-28:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘On exactly the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you, and you shall humble your souls and present an offering by fire to the Lord. You shall not do any work on this same day, for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement on your behalf before the Lord your God.’

And Exodus 30:10 says:

And Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once a year; he shall make atonement on it with the blood of the sin offering of atonement once a year throughout your generations. It is most holy to the Lord.

The Jews consider the Day of Atonement the holiest day in all, for it is on this day that Israel would be forgiven of their sins or would face judgment. Devout Jews tell me that this day understandably brings plenty of anxiety into their hearts. Isn’t it wonderful that we believers in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ have the peace and assurance that our sins are forgiven eternally, because of what He has done on the cross! Yom Kippur literally means “Day of Covering.”

The word Kippur also means “ransom.” It is to show God’s willingness to cover the sins of the previous year. While the animal that was sacrificed had to be one year old in order to provide atonement for the previous sins for one year, Christ, being eternal, provided atonement for an eternity!

Leviticus 16:29 gives further instructions on how the Jews were to observe Yom Kippur:

On the tenth day of the seventh month you shall humble your souls and not do any work

In explaining what must characterize the act of humbling oneself, the rabbis say one must avoid eating and drinking, bathing or washing, marital relations, putting on perfumes or lotions, and wearing leather shoes. Now “refraining from the wearing of leather shoes” threw me. I asked about it and was informed that wearing leather shoes signified luxury.

They wear comfort socks instead!

According to Leviticus 16:31–33, the high priest was to put on his linen garments and was to make atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent or temple, the altar, himself (high priest), the priests (Levites), and the people (Israelites) — all in that order. Leviticus 16:3–4 states:

Aaron shall enter the holy place with this: with a bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He shall put on the holy linen tunic, and the linen undergarments shall be next to his body, and he shall be girded with the linen sash, and attired with the linen turban (these are holy garments). Then he shall bathe his body in water and put them on.

This is not the colorful robe the high priest usually wore. This was a plain white linen garment. This observance was to be performed once a year according to Leviticus 16:34:

Now you shall have this as a permanent statute, to make atonement for the sons of Israel, for all their sins once every year.

The procedure had four parts as spelled out in Leviticus 16:13–14: take fire from the altar of incense, offer sacrifices and place the blood of these sacrifices in a bowl, sprinkle the blood in the Holy Place and upon the mercy seat of the Ark seven times. The ingredients of the incense are found in Exodus 30:34:

Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Take for yourself spices, stacte and onycha and galbanum, spices with pure frankincense; there shall be an equal part of each.’

The Scapegoat

One of the most important aspects of the observance of the Day of Atonement was the scapegoat. We read in Leviticus 16:7–8:

He shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the doorway of the tent of meeting. Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scapegoat.

Then verses 9–10 add:

Then Aaron shall offer the goat on which the lot for the Lord fell, and make it a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot for the scapegoat fell shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make atonement upon it, to send it into the wilderness as the scapegoat.

Laying both hands on the head of the goat, the high priest then confessed the sins of the people. After that he sent the goat away to the wilderness by an appointed person. This fulfills the requirement explained in Leviticus 16:22:

The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness.

This also ties into Isaiah 53:6, which says:

All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.

The Talmud, Tractate Shabbat Folio 86a, states: “How do we know that a crimson-colored strap is tied to the head of the goat that is sent [to ‘Azaz’el]? Because it is said, ‘If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow (Isaiah 1:18).’ By a miracle this crimson-colored strap turned white, thus showing the people that they were forgiven of their sins.” It then explains: “Rabbi Ishmael says, ‘Now did they not have another sign? There was a crimson thread tied to the door of the sanctuary. When the goat had reached the wilderness, the thread would turn white, as it says, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.”’” That is fascinating, but this becomes totally amazing when another section of the Talmud (Yoma 39b) says: “Our Rabbis taught: ‘During the last forty years before the destruction of the Temple the lot [‘For the Lord’] did not come up in the right hand; nor did the crimson-colored strap become white… and the doors of the Hekal (the temple) would open by themselves.’”

After Christ was crucified, the crimson strap on the scapegoat and the crimson thread on the temple door never turned white again! Apparently, God was reminding the Jews that Jesus is the true scapegoat once and for all.

Jesus fulfilled the promise of both goats. He paid the penalty for our sins and removed our sins as well! Since the lot that was drawn for the goat for sacrifice to the Lord never came up in the right hand, this, too, was a sign that God did not accept their offering again. Hebrews 9:11–12 says:

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

As already noted earlier, the Talmud says that the temple doors were found open by themselves each evening. In his writings, The Wars of the Jews (Josephus Complete Works), Josephus said, “At the same festival (Passover)…

the Eastern gate of the inner court of the Temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a base armored with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night.”

This is similar to the tearing of the veil, which is a sign that there is now total access to God because of the redemptive work of Christ.

Excerpted from Unlocking the Secrets of the Feasts by Michael Norten, copyright Thomas Nelson.

Aren’t you glad we are forgiven of our sins through the blood of Jesus Christ? As you learn about the history of Yom Kippur what light does it shed on what Jesus did for you? 

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 14, 2021

In a day when speculation about Heaven runs rampant, I’ve found it both exciting and refreshing to carefully examine what Scripture says. ~ Randy Alcorn, “5 Curious Questions About Heaven”

When the topic is Heaven, questions proliferate. The image of a new Heaven and a new earth stimulates our imagination, piques our curiosity, spurs us to search the Scriptures, and makes us hunger all the more for that day when the Lord “will wipe every tear” from our eyes and “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.”1

And since I had unfettered access to a world-class biblical scholar like Scot McKnight, the journalist in me couldn’t resist exploring seven nettlesome questions about what lies beyond this world. With McKnight’s consent, I flipped my legal pad to a fresh page and, pen in hand, resumed our conversation in the comfortable lounge of a small suburban Chicago church.

But I didn’t start with the most theologically significant issue — or the most profound or even the most consequential.

Instead, I began with the question that almost always comes up when talking to any audience.

Question: Will There Be Pets in Heaven?

For McKnight, it was a black Labrador named Sam. For me, it was a giant poodle named Nikki. Childhood pets are warm and wonderful companions — but will we see them again in Heaven?

“Sam used to go on my paper route with me,” recalled McKnight. “But he had the instinct of a retriever, so at first when I’d throw a paper, he’d run after it and bring it back to me.”

Whether it’s a kitten or a hamster, a chinchilla or a parakeet, most families have a furry, feathery, or scaly friend that endears itself to kids and parents alike. Our hearts say we’d love to see them again in eternity, but what do the biblical facts say? Is the title of the animated film All Dogs Go to Heaven a theologically correct assertion?

“As far as animals in general, yes, I believe the new Heaven and new earth will be populated by all sorts of wildlife,” McKnight told me. “Predators and prey will be at peace.

Isaiah says that ‘the wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.2 What God makes, God perfects. And what God has made for our world today, He will perfect in the world to come.”

“But what about my dog and yours?” I asked. “Will specific pets greet us in the final Heaven?”

Popular opinion seems to say yes. A survey of the oldest pet cemetery in America, where seventy thousand animals are buried, showed that before the 1980s almost no inscriptions mentioned any hope of Heaven for Fido. But since the 1990s, gravestones often “express the owner’s belief in an afterlife for the pets, as well as the expectation, or at least the hope, that owners and pets will be reunited in the afterlife.”3

McKnight’s response was a smile. “When the theologian Rich Mouw was a kid, he asked his mom whether pets will be in Heaven — and when Mouw was a father, his son asked him the same question. In both cases, the answer was, ‘Well, dogs don’t have souls, you see. But anything is possible with God. He will do what is best for us.4

“And he will do what’s best for us,” McKnight said. “I’m convinced that Heaven will not be a duller place than this world, and I think the world would be duller without pets. While our focus in Heaven won’t be on pets, I believe it would be just like God to have our dogs there for us.”

“But no cats,” I stressed. “Absolutely. No cats. That goes without saying.”

Scrappy and Scupper

Though kidding about kittens, McKnight’s cautious optimism on the topic is the same assessment of many Christian thinkers. Asked about pets in Heaven, philosopher Peter Kreeft playfully replied, “Why not?”5 He pointed to Psalm 36:6, which some scholars translate, “You save humans and animals alike, O Lord.”6

Said Kreeft, “We were meant from the beginning to have stewardship over the animals; we have not fulfilled that divine plan yet on earth; therefore it seems likely that the right relationship with animals will be part of Heaven... And what better place to begin than with already petted pets?”7

What about Joni Eareckson Tada’s pet schnauzer, Scrappy?

“If God brings our pets back to life, it wouldn’t surprise me,” she said. “It would be just like Him. It would be totally in keeping with His genuine character... Exorbitant. Excessive. Extravagant in grace after grace. Of all the dazzling discoveries and ecstatic pleasures Heaven will hold for us, the potential of seeing Scrappy would be pure whimsy — utterly, joyfully, surprisingly superfluous.”8

Hank Hanegraaff, the longtime Bible Answer Man, points out that animals populated the Garden of Eden, “thus there is a precedent for believing that animals will populate Eden restored, as well.”9 While he said we can’t know for certain if specific pets will be resurrected for eternity, “I for one am not willing to preclude the possibility.”

Absent specific biblical teaching on the topic, theologian Alan Gomes is more circumspect. “Some verses and biblical themes imply that there may well be animals in the ES [eternal state],” he said. However, he added, “If there are animals on the new earth, it is unlikely that they would be the same animals that existed on this earth. That is, God would create new animals, not resurrect previously existing ones.”10

However, Gomes admitted that he lacked personal interest in the issue, since he’s only “modestly fond” of his pet parakeet, Scupper. “Emotionally speaking,” he said, “I really do not have a dog in this fight.”11

Philosopher J. P. Moreland offers both good and bad news.

The good news is that although our pets don’t have complex souls like humans, who are uniquely made in God’s image, there is biblical evidence that they do possess some sort of rudimentary soul.12

The bad news: “I don’t think the animal soul outlives its body. I could be wrong, but I think the animal soul ceases to exist at death.”13

I hope he’s wrong — for Sam and Nikki’s sake. Oh, and Scrappy. And even a marginally appreciated parakeet named Scupper.

1. Revelation 21:4.

2. Isaiah 11:6.

3. See Stanley Brandes, “The Meaning of American Pet Cemetery Gravestones,” Ethnology 48, no. 2 (Spring 2009): 99–118, https:// anthropology.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/brandes_-_american_pet _cemetery_gravestones.pdf.

4. Richard J. Mouw, When the Kings Come Marching In: Isaiah and the New Jerusalem, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 20.

See blog for full list of attributions.

Excerpted with permission from The Case for Heaven by Lee Strobel, copyright Lee Strobel.

Scripture says that mankind was the only thing that God created in His image and breathed into Him an eternal soul.  Having said that, God has also promised that we cannot even imagine or think of the things that God will bless those that love Him.  Maybe, that could be a beloved pet. 

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 13, 2021

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with My loving eye on you. — Psalm 32:8

I can’t tell you how many parents, when they heard I was working on this book, let me know they had a story to share.

I was excited to interview them, but I had to laugh when I realized that at least two-thirds of the stories were variations on the same theme: praying for your child to get a job.

Everyone who has ever had an adult child has, apparently, been down this sometimes long and winding road.

One mom told me how frustrated she had become after her son batted away one job lead after another, since they just didn’t seem to fit his “work/life balance.” (I thought she was kidding, but then I found out it’s a real thing, that today’s graduates really are looking for jobs that come complete with a gym membership, Friday happy hours, and even — since I guess they are waiting longer to have children — things like health insurance for their pets. Seriously.)

Another said her daughter didn’t want to work “in a cubicle, like Dad.”

And a third shared her son’s Goldilocks-style journey through everything from starting a business to playing in a rock band, until (and I think this is a brilliant idea) her husband invited a group of older men to serve as an advisory board in the young man’s life — a move that ultimately opened the door to a “just right” career in television.

I’d go on, but you get the idea.

Plenty of kids need to figure out what to do with their lives, and plenty of parents are praying. And I’ll admit it. I didn’t expect to have to pray so hard about my own kids’ jobs — and I said as much to author Paula Rinehart when the two of us had lunch together one day. I’d just finished reading her Strong Women, Soft Hearts, and I’d loved what she’d said about trust. “Trust,” Paula had written, “hangs somewhere between knowing what your heart longs for and trying to dictate the shape or timing or outcome of your heart’s desire. It lies in the willingness to accept the particulars of how and when and where God chooses to intervene. It waits in the cool shade of surrender.”1

The cool shade of surrender. I liked that image, but I was nowhere near to experiencing it. Instead, I was working up a sweat over things like timing and outcomes in Hillary’s life.

“Hillary doesn’t have a job,” I confided over lunch. “She is back home and living in her bedroom — she’s one of those boomerang kids — and she seems content.”

“She only graduated three months ago,” Paula countered. “Trust me; she is probably not content. She’s an engineer — they think in linear terms. She is pursuing a job; she’s just not doing it the way you would.”

Well, she had that one right. Hillary was definitely not looking for a job the way I would have. I would have loaded my résumé into the barrel of a shotgun and pulled the trigger, splattering my education and experience all over any company that was hiring. But Hillary was a little more particular. She graduated with a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering, and she wanted to be an astronaut.

It was a dream she had since the fifth grade, and if she couldn’t actually wear a space suit, she at least wanted to do something with rockets.

At first, I shared Hillary’s enthusiasm. “Provide the job you have ordained for her,” I wrote in my prayer journal. “Fill her life so full of blessing that she will not be able to contain it! Let her joy be complete.”2

That’s a good, biblically based prayer for any new graduate. And I wish I could say that my positive attitude continued, and that I had the faith to believe that God puts desires in our hearts that He wants to fulfill. (He does. Psalm 37:4. I’m just saying I wish I would have had the faith to truly believe that.)

I wish I could say I had taken Paula’s words to heart and waited in “the cool shade of surrender.”

And I wish I could tell you I stood by my daughter, loving her and supporting her and letting her live at home with us, rent-free, as spring rolled into summer, and summer turned to fall, never once resenting the fact that she had polished off the last of the Starbucks K-Cups.

But I didn’t. I didn’t do any of the good-mother things I should have.

Prayer Principle

If we want to pray with faith, we must anchor our requests in God’s promises.

Instead, I spent the better part of a year grappling with fear, frustration, and even anger. And if that’s where you are in your own child’s job-hunting season, can I just say this one thing? Don’t beat yourself up. Give your worries to God, and remember that His grace is sufficient to cover all your mistakes, and His power is made perfect in your weakness.3 Hold on to that promise — and to others — because when discouragement and fear try to creep in and cripple our confidence, the Bible is the anchor for our hope. I like how author and prayer expert R. A. Torrey put it: “If I am to have faith when I pray, I must find some promise in the Word of God on which to rest my faith.”4

I hesitate to tell this story (it does not make me look good), but since we’re all in this parenting thing together, I’ll go ahead. Maybe you’ll find some helpful prayer prompts. Or maybe you’ll just read it and be glad you’re not me. Either way, here goes!

I was really proud of Hillary for academic accomplishments (she had gotten an A+ in Spacecraft Design), and I looked forward to seeing how God would use her education in the real world. But then, as one after another of her peers landed jobs with important-sounding companies, I felt the first crack in my confidence. Had she missed the hiring window? Were there no space-ish jobs to be had? Or maybe it was the reverse. Hillary would be the first to admit that decision making is not her strong suit, and I began to fear that she hadn’t gotten a job because maybe there were just too many interesting choices. The ink on her diploma was still wet, and I was already starting to panic. “Don’t You realize how late it is?” I cried out to God. “Don’t You think it’s time to step in and do something?”

I knew I was being a little dramatic, but I was also conscious of a nagging fear that I had somehow failed as a mother.

Had I done something to create a lack of urgency in Hillary?

Had I made her tentative or insecure? Or at the other extreme, was I being too pushy? Would it all backfire?

In the midst of my emotional hurricane, I sensed God’s rebuke. “Quiet!” He said. “Be still!”5 It was the same thing He said to the disciples in the boat one stormy night, and I felt my own winds of fear subside. I began to pray that Hillary would also be attentive to His voice.

“Be Hillary’s shepherd,” I asked, borrowing from John 10:2–4. “May she hear Your voice as You call her by name. Lead her into the grown-up world, and may she follow You.”

A month went by, during which friends offered suggestions about jobs that Hillary might want to do or cities where she might want to live. “May Hillary be willing to listen to advice and be humble, so that You will guide her and teach her,” I prayed.6 And even though I knew this was a promise given to the Israelites (and that contemporary Christians who claimed it did so knowing that it pertained more to spiritual and eternal blessings than to things like good health, good wealth, and good jobs), I pulled out Jeremiah 29:11. “I know You have plans to prosper Hillary, to give her hope and a future,” I prayed, “and I am so grateful for that. But I would also love it if part of Your long-term plans for blessing my girl could include a here-and-now job.”

July rolled around. Hillary kept researching space companies and looking at job postings, but it didn’t seem (to me, anyway) like she was making much progress. I searched the Scriptures for something — anything — that would help me cope with the chasm between my plan (“Just get a job!”) and Hillary’s (“I want to be an astronaut!”), and I came upon Proverbs 16:9 (NLT):

We can make our plans,
but the Lord determines our steps.

I realized that it didn’t matter whose plan we were following; the outcome was up to the Lord. My job was to get out of His way.

Prayer Principle

We can make all the plans we want — and so can our kids — but God is the one who directs our path.

That acknowledgment was my first step toward the cool shade of surrender. And the next thing I knew, Hillary had taken a job.

As a surf instructor.

To Hillary, the surf job (which was at a camp where she worked in previous summers) seemed like the perfect way to earn an income while she continued to send out résumés. To me, it looked like she was procrastinating, like she was looking for a way to avoid growing up and having to wear shoes every day. And then another worry entered my mind. Surf camp was a place where Hillary clearly fit in; maybe she didn’t know if she belonged in the space program. Was she secretly as anxious as I was? I didn’t know.

I kept on praying that God would show her where to go, career-wise, using verses like Psalm 32:8 as the basis for my prayers: “Instruct Hillary and teach her the way she should go; counsel her and watch over her.” But I also began to pray for her spirit, writing words just like this in my journal:

Give Hillary a sense of BELONGING. Let her know she is CHOSEN.7

Give Hillary a sense of WORTH. Remind her that she is YOUR WORKMANSHIP, and that you have prepared GOOD WORKS for her to do.8

Give Hillary a sense of PURPOSE and IDENTITY as your child, and fill her soul with the knowledge that she is VALUABLE and PRECIOUS and USEFUL to you.9

I prayed this way for nearly two months. And when Hillary came home from the surf camp, two job prospects were waiting. The first was from a winegrower in California who wanted her to design a new way of processing grapes. That sounded good to me, but it didn’t appeal to my girl. The second was with a structural engineering firm, but when Hillary went for the interview and the guy (who seemed a little creepy) asked her to lie down in the middle of an Applebee’s and show him how to “pop up” on a surfboard, she balked.

I would have too.

But that didn’t prevent me from wishing that Hillary would just let go of the whole astronaut thing. I figured there had to be a million jobs out there for engineers; why did she have to be so single-minded in her focus? “Aim lower” has never been the best motivational speech, but it’s pretty much the way I began to think (and speak) about Hillary’s job search.

I’ll spare you the details, but you know the Proverbs 31 mother, the one who “speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue”? Picture the opposite.

I wrote some fairly frank things in my prayer journal, and I was sure that God would understand, and that (being a parent) He’d take my side. I opened my Bible to give Him a chance to respond. And — no kidding — here’s what I read:

Gently encourage the stragglers, and reach out for the exhausted, pulling them to their feet. Be patient with each person, attentive to individual needs. And be careful that when you get on each other’s nerves you don’t snap at each other. Look for the best in each other, and always do your best to bring it out.10

Okay, then. God wanted me to encourage Hillary with gentleness and patience instead of sarcasm and snapping.

Point taken.

But He wasn’t finished. I read the next few verses:

Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live.11

Was He serious? I could pray, and I could resolve to thank God for whatever it was that He had planned. But… be cheerful? I was glad I knew Philippians 2:13

It is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose

because if cheerfulness was required to live the way God wanted me to, He was going to have to give me some sort of divine lobotomy.

September crawled by. Since she had time on her hands and an affinity for teenagers, Hillary volunteered to work with Young Life, a ministry to high schoolers. Hillary loved the kids, and they seemed to love her back, and as I watched a sense of purpose and joy begin to bloom again in Hillary’s life, I realized that her volunteer work was something I could be thankful for. Maybe even cheerful about.

In October, a neighbor arranged for Hillary to take a tour of NASA Langley Research Center, which is about forty minutes from our home. Hillary was captivated. She loved the designs and projects she saw, and even better, she could understand how everything worked.

But NASA didn’t have any job openings, so Hillary began making plans to go to Brazil, where she had done volunteer work during her college spring breaks. The orphanage where she had helped out was opening a trade school; Hillary figured she could teach welding or some other engineering-related job skill.

Then she got a phone call. Could she come to NASA for an interview the next day? A post had just opened up — one designed to be filled by a young engineer — and someone she had met on her tour remembered her name.

Flustered — and giddy — Hillary put Brazil on hold and began planning her interview wardrobe. I wasn’t sure how a rocket scientist was supposed to dress, so I left her staring at her closet and dug out my Bible. I’d moved into Daniel by then, where I found a gold mine of prayer prompts:

• Cause the officials at NASA to show favor and sympathy to Hillary.12

• Give her knowledge and understanding, and may she speak with wisdom and tact.13

• Let Hillary have a keen mind and the ability to explain riddles and solve difficult problems.14

She went for the interview and loved it. But then a couple of weeks went by with no word. Hillary took NASA’s silence in stride, figuring it might take a while for them to interview other candidates, but I was worried. Had God forgotten my girl? Had the whole thing just been a big tease?

I opened my Bible to Nehemiah 9, the part where the Israelites show up in sackcloth and ashes and confess their sins. I could relate. “Lord,” I prayed, “I am sad and I’m hurt. I thought I knew you and how you would work in answer to our hopes and our prayers. I thought you had put the desire to work at NASA in Hillary’s heart and that you would fulfill that desire. “But maybe I haven’t really trusted You. Maybe I’ve been focused on your provision for Hillary’s life, finding my joy in that outcome rather than finding my joy in You. I confess that I have been controlling, self-centered, and driven by fear. I’ve questioned Hillary’s approach to job hunting, and I’ve questioned Yours. I am sorry for my arrogance. Please give me Your grace.” There it was. The cool shade of surrender. Hillary’s dream job was within sight — but after eight months of wrestling in prayer on her behalf, I was willing to let it go.

I sat there, staring at my open Bible.

Stand up and praise the Lord your God, who is from everlasting to everlasting.15

That was what the priests told the Israelites to do, once they finished their confession. Even though I felt about as big as a worm (and like the last thing God might want was to hear anything more out of me), I figured I ought to join them.

So I did. I began to praise God for His faithfulness, for the way He walked alongside our family through the job-hunting journey, and for the provision He had given us in His Word. Nothing had changed outwardly — Hillary still had no job — but in the shade of surrender, that didn’t matter so much anymore.

And then my eye fell on Nehemiah 9:8:

You have kept Your promise because You are righteous.

You can probably guess what happened. Two weeks later, NASA called again. Hillary was ordering chicken nuggets with her Young Life girls when her phone rang, so she put the space people on hold. (Did I mention that she doesn’t always do things the way her uptight mother would?)

Anyhow, they offered her the job, and she took it.

Poised for Prayer

Why did it take eight months for Hillary to get a job? Or to put it another way, why did it take me eight months to pry my controlling fingers off of her life and surrender to God? I don’t know. But God does. And as Priscilla Shirer teaches in her Discerning the Voice of God, “The purposes of God not only involve specific plans; they also involve specific timing.”16

Prayer Principle

Trusting God with our children’s future means being willing to trust His timing.

Had God provided Hillary’s job when I wanted Him to — the day she graduated from college — she would have missed the opportunity to work with Young Life, a volunteer post she loved. She’s still passionate about engineering, but as she told me just the other day, the chance to invest in the lives of young girls has been more satisfying than anything she could have imagined.

Not only that, but had she gone straight into the workforce after graduation, she might have missed the opportunity to meet (and then fall in love with) her husband, who brought a group of guys on the same Young Life ski trip where Hillary showed up with her crew of young girls.

God’s agenda is always so much bigger than ours. My prayer for Hillary’s job was about her finding employment; His answer was about teaching me to relax, to wait in the cool shade of surrender, and to realize that what Hillary and I really needed — and what God wanted to give us — was more of Himself.

1-16. Footnotes on the blog.       

Excerpted from Praying the Scriptures for Your Adult Children by Jodie Berndt, copyright Jodie Berndt.

If you’re in a season of launching your child or grandchild graduate into adult life maybe you’re experiencing the frustration of waiting for them to find a job, too. Why not spend that time in prayer, specific prayer and surrender?

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 12, 2021

Before we launch into some creative and meaningful ideas for grandparents, let me (John) share with you something I remember vividly about my grandfather. We called it the Great Parakeet Fiasco, and it became a legend in our home.

I was in second grade. Our parakeet had escaped from its cage while we were at school. My grandmother was cleaning the parakeet’s cage, and Tweetie (yes, we were creative in naming pets, including Mr. Cat) decided to make a break for it — and got past her hand and flew into the living room. Grandma ordered my grandfather to catch the runaway parakeet, which he did by throwing a dish towel over it and then taking it in his hand.

But then it happened. Tweetie was obviously scared and bit a large chunk out of Grandfather’s right index finger. Almost spasmodically, Grandfather squeezed his hand and cried out, “Dumb bird!” (Or words to that effect.) My grandfather was an old carpenter and a hard-as-nails Texan. Tragically — and he truthfully didn’t mean to — his hands were so strong, that spasmodic squeeze was all it took to send Tweetie to parakeet heaven. (Please, no e-mails on the theology of such a place.)

I share this tragic story not because it was funny. It wasn’t. But what happened next was almost as bad. My grandmother was not in the room when Tweetie expired. So my grandfather took the bird and put it back in the cage. He wrapped its feet around the wooden perch that stretched across the middle of the cage and then leaned the parakeet up against the side, hoping it would look like Tweetie had fallen asleep and passed away.

However, like any great cover-up, it didn’t work.

Pandemonium broke out when we got home from school, and a misshapen bird led to a reluctant confession. And here is why I share this very sad story.

There is simply no way to hide things — for long — from our children or grandchildren. They are like God’s little spies. And as God’s Word says,

Nothing is hidden that will not become evident, nor anything secret that will not be known and come to light.
— Luke 8:17 NASB

That doesn’t mean we have to be perfect grandparents. None of us are or will be. But kids remember our actions — positive or negative. And as we get older and realize more acutely that there is an expiration date on all our lives, it’s important we realize that our children and grandchildren won’t remember all the places we took them, but they will remember how we loved them.

So here are several small ways to bring the Blessing home to a grandchild’s life.

1. Pick a household chore and team up with your grandchildren.

First, real men (and women) do chores. And hopefully your grandchildren will have parents who are wise enough to assign them some. If they’re too young to do them, that’s when kids want to do chores! But if they’re old enough to do the chore, odds are they aren’t going to like it.

Which is where you step in — not to do the chore for them, but with them. And while you’re doing that task, talk to them about some chores you had to do as a child: the fun ones, the challenging ones. The time you got caught skipping out on a chore — and the consequences — or the thing that chore actually taught you. Your chores will very likely show you grew up in a very different world from today and your grandchildren’s chores. And this will give you a chance to share your story — which is in itself a wonderful way of blessing each of your grandchildren.

I’m grateful for the stories that my mother told me about the pigs down in the mud and how they knew it was her when she was trying to feed them. Or my grandfather talking about falling asleep while driving the tractor and waking up when it ran into — and through — the neighbors’ fence. It was another world. It brought me closer to both of them to hear their chores and challenges, and it remains a blessing to me to this day.

2. Declare a grandparent Anything-Goes Dinner national holiday.

You might talk with your children before the next time you’re watching the grandkids to ask their permission to do this. (Or you can ask for forgiveness!) But one great way to bless kids is to declare a national holiday on whatever day you’ve got the kids for dinner. Announce it as National Anything-Goes Dinner Night and then head to the store. There, you let them pick out a main course, a something-else side to put on their plate, and a dessert. And since it’s anything goes, get ready for chocolate milk for the main course, peanut butter mixed with jelly as their side, and macaroni and cheese for their dessert.

While they’re eating, talk to them about how different things can still be good together — like how their grandmother and grandfather are different and the Lord has made them a wonderful mix. And how their mother and father are very different from each other, but they’re wonderful together too.

And, finally, how that grandson in front of you and the granddaughter on the other side of the table are very different from each other — but they’re very loved as well. That’s the message of 1 Corinthians 12. We’re not all “eyes.” We’re not all “ears.” But we are all placed in the body right where we belong.

It’s a fun way to point out what you love about them — and how you can love someone (like their sister) just as much, even though you are very different from that person. This even provides a great opportunity to talk to your grandchildren about racial differences and help ensure that our next generation will step up and heal racial division and hurts in our country as well.

3. Just like air — teach them that God is always there.

Kids grow up in a flash. But even so, our time as grandparents is ticking on an even faster clock. One way to leave your grandchildren a picture of how your love and God’s love will always be there — even when they can’t see it — is to bring some balloons to the dinner table.

Make sure there’s no choking hazard for little kids. With older kids, while still supervising them, have them each hold and blow up a balloon. Then, rather than having them tie the balloon, tell them instead to aim it at their grandmother (wherever she’s sitting) or grandfather and “shoot” the balloon at them! Kids love watching those balloons shoot across the room! Let them do it several times until they’re all blown out.

Then say, “Kids, let me ask you a question. Can you see air?” And of course, unless you live in Southern California, the answer for most kids will be no. Then share with them about what they’ve been doing with their balloons. “Did you know that air — even if you can’t see it — has power? Just like how that balloon shot across the room. And air, even if you can’t see it, is a part of space, just like the way air shapes a balloon when you blow into it.”

Then tell them, “I want you kids to remember something, and that’s the answer to a question. ‘Is God real — even though you can’t see Him?’” They may say yes, or they may say no. But you can tell them, “Kids, just like air — God is there.” You might even want to read them Colossians 1:15:

Christ is the visible expression of the invisible God. — (Phillips)

“We can’t see God the Father – but we got to see Jesus. And now, even though Jesus has gone back up to Heaven, He is still real. And still here.”

Next, you could also tell them what my grandmother told me. “John, the day will come when I’m not here and I’m up in Heaven with Jesus.” (She was dying of pancreatic cancer, and I was eight years old.) “Just because you can’t see something, like Jesus or Heaven, or my love when I’m up in Heaven – they’re all real.”

4. Read them their own “hero’s journey” book — with their name written all over it.

Here’s a last suggestion on something small you can do with a child who needs some attention and has some time for you to read to him or her (think about The Princess Bride and reading to a not super-sick but still stuck-at-home kid).

Read your grandchild a book (and if you can, purchase it as a gift) that has a pronounced hero or heroine in it. But each time that character’s name comes up in the book, change that character’s name to your grandchild’s name.

Take The Chronicles of Narnia. The second book in that wonderful children’s series is the The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. (You can get it online for only a few dollars.) Let’s say you have a granddaughter. In that book, Lucy is not only a main character but is very smart and brave. And so, too, will be your granddaughter (let’s call her Heather). As you read, every time Lucy’s name appears in the book, point to your granddaughter and substitute “Heather” for Lucy.

It’s Heather who meets Mr. Beaver. It’s Heather who runs from the White Witch. It’s Heather who meets Aslan the great lion. It’s a small way to say to a grandchild, “I see something special inside of you.” And forever that book can be something on her shelf that makes her say, “My grandmother read me that book. And she thought I was as brave and kind as Lucy.”

5. Finally, don’t forget your kids.

Sometimes it’s much easier to bless our grandkids than it is to bless our own kids. This is especially true in relationships with our adult kids where there may be layers of hurt or emotional distance.

However, by forgetting to bless our own children, we can inadvertently cause pain in that relationship and drive a wedge between us and them. Or we create a much bigger wedge — or, in some cases, a Grand Canyon-size hole.

So no matter how much fun you are having with your grandkids, don’t forget their parents! Go back through this list and make sure that you are still taking time to bless your kids — just as much time as you spend blessing your grandchildren.

No matter what age or stage of life, we all need to know that we have the Blessing. Especially from our parents.

Excerpted from The Blessing by John Trent, Gary Smalley, and Kari Trent Stageberg, copyright John Trent and Kari Trent Stageberg.

What are some things that are holding you back from blessing your grandkids? (e.g., lack of time, not knowing how, fear, etc.) What is one way you can overcome the challenges? 

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 11, 2021

We should all be remembering the morning of 9/11 twenty years ago, the shock, devastation, loss and pain that has never healed.  Please take a moment today to pray for the thousands who died and their families and friends.  Pray that the living might come to faith in Jesus if not already a part of His family.  May God bless the details of your day today.  Pastor Dale

Son of God, who subdued the troubled waters and laid to rest the fears of men,
let Your majesty master us and
Your power of calm control us.

Replace our fears with faith
and our unrest with perfect trust in You,
who lives and governs all things, world without end.

~ John Wallace Suter (1859–1942), Adapted

Set free, O Lord, the souls of Your servants
from all restlessness and anxiety.
Give us that peace and power which flow from You. Keep us in all perplexity and distress,
that upheld by Your strength
and stayed on the rock of Your faithfulness,
we may abide in You now and forevermore.

~ Francis Paget (1851–1911)

To You alone, O Jesus, I must cling; running to Your arms, dear Lord, there let me hide, safe from all fears, loving You with the tenderness of a child.

~ St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897)

You say that if I give You my burdens,
You will take care of me.
You say that I should cast all my cares upon You,

because You love me,
because You can handle them all, and because it shows my faith in You.

A burden that is heavy enough to sink me is as light as a feather to You.
A fear that can paralyze me
has no power over You.

So I unload it all before You
and hand it over for You to manage.
I put my trust in You — not in my perspective or resources. You can do anything, God!
I will not be afraid, because You are my King and Father. You are with me, and You are for me.
You accept me as I need You and rely on You,
and You walk with me now and always.
You will strengthen me for whatever comes.

~ Carrie Marrs (C.M. the author)

Lord, my emotions could propel me downward or pull a curtain around me, blocking Your light. But instead, I look to You and pray:
Train my mind on Your truth.

Shape my thoughts with Your Spirit.
Fill my heart with Your peace.
Guide me and give me self-control to do what is wise. I trust that what You say is more real than what I feel.

~ C. M.

Excerpted from A Prayer for Every Occasion by Carrie Marrs, copyright Zondervan.

These are strange and difficult times around the world. It’s human and normal to feel fear and anxiety. But our prayers reach the throne of Heaven! God is listening. Tell Him your thoughts and concerns. He is working on your behalf even before you utter a word!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 10, 2021

We are all in need of a Savior, even when we’ve chosen Him.  The war rages on around us, and it won’t ever stop.

If it’s true that how you think defines who you are, then what you think about God is the most important question of your life.

All life on earth was created by God and for God, and for the most part everyone is wrestling with what they think about God. For some He’s a tyrant, and they reject Him as unworthy of their love. For others He’s a genie, and when He doesn’t give them what they want, they either pout or lose their secure footing. Some view God as a kind of force that can be found in everything — not a personal being, mind you, but more like a providential mist that isn’t super interested in rules or details but only in the big picture of things. Some view God as a puppet master, causing all the good and all the bad in the world. They are elated when good things happen but devastated when tragedy strikes.

Others view Him as a figment of people’s imaginations.

What you think about God is who God is to you, and it affects every aspect of your life. It’s your spiritual reality, even if it may be entirely wrong.

Hebrews 11:6 tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God. This verse fascinates me because it is so direct. I think a lot of people miss this and they replace faith with religious activity. We often think that the more we do for God, the better we are with Him. If I can just do my devotions on a more regular basis, or if I can just soak in His presence more, or if I can serve more at my church, then I know that will please Him. Well, I’m sure He will find anything you do for Him pleasing, but don’t forget the one thing you must have if that is your goal. You have to have faith. But what exactly is faith?

The definition is pretty straightforward. Merriam-Webster says faith is “complete trust.” So then, how much trust must we have in God for it to qualify as faith? Jesus said if we have faith the size of a mustard seed we can see great things. So I guess even the tiniest amount of trust in God counts for something. But I would like to make the argument that if our goal in life is to please God, then the main thing we should be focusing on is our faith level. If it’s impossible to please God without trusting Him, then wouldn’t it make sense that the more we learn to trust Him, the more pleasing we are to Him?

Why does it need to be this way? Why is God so preoccupied with our faith in Him? Why is it such a big deal?

When Saul screws up big time and basically loses his kingship (1 Samuel 15), he doesn’t lose everything because he kills someone or commits adultery (shoot, David did both those things). He loses it all because he has no faith in God and this lack of faith leads to disobedience. The Lord told Saul to go bust up a town named Amalek, and he was to spare no one — not even the animals — in this mission.

This was divine retribution for stuff Amalek had done to Israel, so Saul heads out on a military sortie. He does what he’s told — mostly. Saul takes the king of Amalek, Agag, hostage, and keeps a bunch of the best animals to offer as a sacrifice to God. It seems like Saul has good intentions, but unfortunately it’s not what God asked him to do.

The prophet Samuel rolls in, and Saul is feeling pretty good about himself. He has even built a little monument to himself to mark the occasion, like an idiot. Saul proudly tells Samuel that he’s done what God asked him to do. Then Samuel drops the hammer:

What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? — 1 Samuel 15:14 NKJV

Saul tries to put a nice spin on it, but Samuel wants none of it.

Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king. 
— 1 Samuel 15:22–23 NKJV

Dang. Saul is toast. And all because he didn’t obey the voice of the Lord. He didn’t trust God’s word. He didn’t have faith but did what seemed right in his own eyes. Lesson #1: If you want God, you’ve got to take Him on His terms.

We know faith is a big deal to God, if not the biggest, but again I ask, why? While I realize there are three currencies in God’s kingdom (faith, hope, and love) and 1 Corinthians 13 tells us plainly that the greatest of these is love, we still can’t avoid the utter importance of faith as explained in Hebrews 11:6, particularly when it comes to pleasing God. I would argue that while it’s impossible to please God without faith, if your faith isn’t grounded in love, the whole thing kind of falls apart. Hope then is the glue that holds them all together. But for our purposes, I want to focus on this slippery little thing called faith, since the battleground we’re dealing with is the mind, and faith is very much a mind thing.

A frustration that has never left me is the fact that God is invisible. When He asked me to make films about Him, my first thought was, Uh, God, You do realize that film is a visual medium and You’re, well, not. Figuring out new ways to make an invisible God visible is the biggest hurdle I have in making my movies. It’s like trying to film air. The only way you can even tell it’s there is when the wind blows. So I have to try to find situations where God’s wind is blowing on people.

In my book Finding God in the Bible, I talk at length about “God’s invisibility cloak.” Maybe it’s because I’m a filmmaker that I obsess about God’s invisibility so much, but I think it’s a thing for a lot of other people too. I mean, let’s face it, if you’re a Christian, you literally believe in an invisible man.

As in, an invisible man is your best friend. No wonder the world thinks we’re nuts sometimes.

When I examined the invisibility problem, I found a possible explanation. There are two wildly different instances of God “showing” Himself to people in Scripture, and both can teach us a lot about God’s nature.

The first is found in Exodus 33. Moses has gone up Mount Sinai and is hanging out with God. The two friends are talking about Israel, with Moses reminding the Lord that these are His people after all, so, you know, don’t smite them, please. Yes, they’re a dysfunctional tribe, but they’re His dysfunctional tribe. God shows great affection for Moses, saying,

You have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name. — Exodus 33:17 NRSV

So Moses realizes he’s holding the golden ticket, and he just goes for broke and asks to see God’s full glory. What a request! Shockingly, God decides to grant his request, but with the caveat that Moses only be able to look upon His back. If he looked at God’s face, he’d die. Like, Raiders of the Lost Ark face-melting die. So God puts Moses in a cave and passes by, allowing Moses to see His full goodness. Man, I’m not jealous of much, but this one is off-the-charts cool.

After this little love fest, God makes new tablets for Moses to take to the people with His commandments, and Moses scurries down the mountain. But he doesn’t realize that because he just literally saw God, his face is now glowing.

Everyone freaks out when they see Moses, and he has to wear a veil because the people simply cannot deal.

Understand what’s going on here — the people are freaking out at the aftereffect of someone else seeing God. Just imagine what would have happened if they’d seen Him with their own eyes!

There will come a point in time when the entire world will see Him in His fullness with their own eyes. God minced no words when He said:

By Myself I have sworn, My mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: before Me every knee will bow; by Me every tongue will swear. They will say of Me, ‘In the Lord alone are deliverance and strength.’ All who have raged against Him will come to Him and be put to shame.
— Isaiah 45:23–24 NIV

God is not messing around here, and He wants you to realize it. He swears by Himself (there is nothing higher) that what He’s about to say will happen. And why is He so sure that this is going to happen, especially considering how horribly messed up the world is these days? Are we Christians suddenly going to become incredible witnesses for Him? That’s highly doubtful. No, I think there’s only one way for this event to happen, and it’s going to come at the grand finale of life as we know it on earth. Whenever that “date and time that only the Father knows” comes, that will be the moment when God throws off His invisibility cloak and the whole world will see Him for who He truly is. At that moment, when He shows Himself clearly in all His goodness and glory, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is indeed Lord of all.

But there’s a funny little thing about love that most people forget.

Love must be a choice. Its very nature demands freedom, and all love comes with the risk of rejection. It’s why God gave man free will. You cannot have true love without the possibility of rejection.

It’s that possibility of rejection that all of us have faced at one time or another.

I have vivid memories of hiding in my parents’ bathroom at age fifteen, staring at the beige phone I’d pulled in with me, trying to will myself to call a girl and ask her to go to the skating rink with me. But calling meant I’d have to admit I liked her and, good Lord, what if she said she didn’t like me back? I’d sit and stare at that phone, but the fear of rejection was simply too great. I couldn’t do it.

Yet God does it over and over and over again. He puts Himself out there, asking us to choose Him, to love Him like He loves us. And when we reject Him and His kindness for our own selfish desires, He simply looks for another opportunity to prove His love and grace once again. For many, it will be a lifetime pursuit, and they will never choose Him, usually because they never fully understand how wonderful He is. They look at His other kids and think their dysfunction is somehow His dysfunction. But we are all in need of a Savior, even when we’ve chosen Him. The war rages on around us, and it won’t ever stop.

You see, God cannot reveal Himself to us physically, because if He were to do that our choice to love Him would cease to be a choice at all. Every knee would bow because no matter what you do or don’t believe, if you were to see Him for who He is, not through the filters of our brokenness, but truly as He is — He’d be utterly irresistible. When that day comes, for those who have chosen to love Him when it was most difficult, our love will be made complete. For those who haven’t, it will be a day filled with the greatest regret of their lives.

Excerpted from Chasing a God You Don’t Want to Catch by Darren Wilson, copyright Darren Wilson.

Are you trusting Him? What we think about Him matters! It matters more than anything else and directs the course of every step of our lives. Take a step of faith. Take a step of love. 

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 9, 2021

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. — Psalm 19:1–3

Last night I looked up at a clear, high-altitude Colorado sky and was taken aback. My Father placed every one of those stars in the sky and then called them all by name! And that is just the beginning of our Father’s handiwork. Beyond the Milky Way, there are many more galaxies, too many to count, all created and placed by our Father’s hand.

It makes me wonder what there could be in my life today, next week, or ever that is too big for my Father in Heaven to handle. The great God who set the stars in place surely wouldn’t have any trouble with the complications in my life.

As I look up, I am amazed that the One who did all this loves me. I will never understand what He saw in my beaten-down, messed-up life. But I happily accept the mystery of it all. He has chosen me to be His child. He has redeemed me with the precious blood of His one, sinless Son, Jesus. He has invited me to lay all my troubles at His feet. Words cannot express my gratitude. I am completely starstruck!

Prayer

Father, thank You for creating me in Your own image, demonstrating that You care for me more than You care for all the stars in the heavens. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

He Loves You Too Much

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. — Ezekiel 36:26

Our neighbor’s dog was a sweetheart and everyone in the neighborhood loved her. But she had a talent for getting out of the yard. One day, she managed to escape and was hit by a car, leaving her badly injured and lying in a ditch. We rushed to help her, but as so often happens with injured animals, she lashed out at us, growling, barking, and snapping. The dog’s owner wouldn’t take no for an answer though. He pushed past his dog’s hostile response and took care of her — because he loved her.

I have had times in my life when I was the one lying in the gutter, broken and hurting. God came to me there and pushed past my angry and hostile reactions — because He loves me. In spite of my restless behavior and my foolish protests, He stuck with me, healing, restoring, and changing me.

God has big plans for me, too big to leave me lying in the gutter, licking my own wounds. He had a plan to get me back on my feet and make me productive for His Kingdom.

He’s given me a new heart and a new spirit, and He’ll never give up on me — because He loves me.

Prayer

Father, thank You for picking me up and putting me back on my feet. Thank You for loving me so much that You helped me even when I fought against Your loving care. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Excerpted from Celebrate Recovery Devotional by John Baker, Johnny Baker, and Mac Owens , copyright John Baker, Johnny Baker, and Mac Owens.

God is so good!  He who created everything chooses us to be in His family. He loves you!  Have you bitten the hand of God lately?  No matter the pain on earth, the hand of God will heal it for all eternity and allow you to be in His presence always!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 8, 2021

By John Piper

In the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John, we read a remarkable story of a man born blind who was made to see by the miraculous healing power of Christ. It was the kind of miracle, like so many of them, that could not be kept a secret. Word spread far and wide of what Jesus had done to this young man. But the power players of the day rejected the news. And so we read that…

the Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age [that is, he’s at least 13 years old]. He will speak for himself.” (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.)

So there’s a power move here, an intimidation factor at play. John continues,

Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” He [the healed man] answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” (John 9:18–25)

“Was blind, but now I see” — a famous line, worked into John Newton’s famous hymn “Amazing Grace.” John 9 is a key chapter in explaining God’s plan for physical disability. But it’s also a key chapter for understanding how we as Christians, changed by the grace of God, can testify of Christ before the world’s most powerful and educated people. Here’s Pastor John to explain.

Here we see the full-blown courage of a beggar — a mere beggar standing up to the most religious, most educated people of the land. And we see here full-blown blasphemy in response to that kind of courage.

Testifying Power

Verse 24: “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” In other words, “Join us in blasphemy, or we’ll excommunicate you out of the synagogue.” That’s not like being excommunicated out of Bethlehem, because do you know what happens if we do discipline on an unrepentant person? They go join another church. In spite of any letter we might send, there are churches of all kinds, and people just move on.

That can’t happen here. When you get kicked out of a synagogue, you get kicked out of Judaism. This is life. This is like being in a Muslim-dominated context. You can’t be there as a Christian. It won’t work. This is huge. Don’t just hear, “We’ll kick you out.” Getting rid of you from the synagogue means you’re out of the community. This is huge, what this man was standing up against.

“A personal testimony trumps arguments when they’re bad arguments — and they’re all bad when they’re against Jesus.”

Verse 25 is his most famous sentence. People all over the world know this sentence, even if they don’t know the Bible: “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” I hope you feel something here. You don’t think of yourself as a theologian and you don’t think of yourself as a scientist, but you’ve got people coming against your faith with every manner of argument — historically, scientifically, experientially. They’re coming against you if you try to be a bold, regular witness.

And I want you to feel the power of this: a personal testimony trumps arguments when they’re bad arguments — and they’re all bad arguments when they’re against Jesus. Don’t be intimidated. This man was way less educated than everybody in all these rooms, and he’d been blind all of his life. And he just simply said with all boldness, “Look, you may know some things I don’t know, but I can see.”

Doctrines of Courage

One of the reasons I teach and preach on the doctrines of grace is because there are so many Christians who don’t know how they got saved, so that they don’t know they have a stunning testimony that they sheer believe. Your belief is a miracle; you didn’t choose it.

Of course, if you have a theology that says, “I did it,” then you’ve got no testimony to the power of God in your life. But at age 6 or 16 or 36, when you saw Jesus as needed and beautiful and sufficient, and you confessed, “I’m a sinner, I need you, I receive you,” a miracle happened. A miracle happened. That’s why these theological things matter.

You can stand up in front of the Senate and say, “I don’t know much about what you guys deal with here. I just know one thing: I was blind once, and now I see the glory of Christ as self-evidencing and compelling, and I will die for him. I’ll stake my life on the truth of what I’ve seen in Jesus.” That’s what you can say. That’s very powerful. It is here. It will come to a point where they can’t handle him anymore. That’s what he said. I hope you’re willing to say it. I hope you have enough understanding to say it, and if you don’t, I hope you study about how you got saved, so that you will know that if you’re saved, you can say it.

Blind Hearts

His courage becomes scorn. Verse 27: “Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Whoa, what are you doing, man? You’re going to get yourself killed. They’re very hostile, of course. Verses 28–29: “They reviled him, saying, ‘You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.’”

Now the controversy has revealed another deceit: They’re not disciples of Moses. They think they are. They’re not, because Jesus said in John 5:46, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.” “You don’t know Moses, and you don’t know God. You talk about Moses. You read Moses. You talk about God. You read God’s word. And you don’t know God, because if you knew God and you knew Moses, you’d know me.”

Again, the controversy is revealing what’s really going on in the Jewish leaders’ hearts. Now we are seeing who’s really blind here. They take the first five books of their Bible, and they read them, and they don’t see anything. They’re blind. We’re watching a man whose sight is becoming clearer and clearer and clearer, and whose courage is becoming stronger and stronger, and we’re watching these Pharisees reveal more and more blindness. You don’t want to be a part of that.

Jesus in Pursuit

Jesus and the beggar have a conversation in verses 35–38, after the Jewish leaders cast the beggar out. What makes this conversation so amazingly significant is that Jesus sought him out and found him. Verse 34: “‘You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?’ And they cast him out.” Now, that’s really serious. To whom will he turn when he’s just been cast out of the community? To whom will he turn?

He doesn’t have to turn anywhere. Jesus turns to him. We’ve seen this before, haven’t we? Jesus found him. Jesus seeks him. It is no accident that the next chapter is about the Good Shepherd who gathers his sheep. It’s no accident. John knows what he’s doing. He found him. “That’s one of mine. Nobody else wants him right now. I want him.” That’s what I’m praying he’ll do to you in the next five minutes of this sermon. He is after you. He is going to find you. That’s why you’re here. That’s why you’re there.

Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. (John 9:35–38)

“Do you confess Christ openly and defend him with your simple testimony, ‘I was blind, and now I see’?”

Then the beggar is gone out of this story. He never says another word. We never see him again. The last thing he does is worship Jesus. I pray that’s the last thing I do. Jesus does the works of God. Jesus is the glory of God. Jesus is to be worshiped. That’s the point of the story. The beggar is blind. He calls Jesus a man. Then he calls Jesus a prophet. Then he defends him at huge risk to his life. And then he worships him after he is found by Jesus.

‘Finally, I Saw’

Jesus came into the world to seek worshipers. That’s why he’s here. Do you confess him openly and defend him with your simple testimony? No big apologetic reasoning. Some of you are called to that, but most of you aren’t. You’re just called to be witnesses. If you see a car hit a person, you can be a witness. You don’t need any education at all.

“I saw” — 95 percent of Christians are saved that way. No big argument — just, “I saw. Finally, I saw. I was reading the Gospels, and I couldn’t resist this man anymore. He was real. He’s real. He’s true. He’s exactly what I need. He’s what the world needs. He’s real. This is not made up. I saw.”

I simply ask, Do you confess him openly and defend him with your simple testimony, “I was blind, and now I see”?

Our personal testimony of coming to Christ is the most powerful way to show others the power of God.  They can see it and know it in us!  Share yours!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 7, 2021

There is no higher desire in a human heart than the longing to be free, and in this case I mean literally.

So when I think about Paul writing four of his thirteen letters from prison, I marvel at his ability to be clear of mind, direct, and full of hope and gratitude. Read Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, or Philemon, and you’ll see what I mean. We don’t find a pity party in these pages. We find strength, confidence, and an enviable experience of the presence of God.

But what is even more notable, perhaps, is Paul’s overt cheering. Not only was he not bitter toward those outside the prison walls, but he constantly encouraged them, offering prayers of grace and peace, and reminding them that God was for them and so was he. With loving words penned from prison, he served them.

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

— Philippians 1:3–11

This letter to the believers at Philippi wasn’t an isolated event. Paul’s signature style became one of constant lifting up, even while facing dire circumstances. In every way that mattered, Paul saw himself as a free man.

Did he want the freedoms enjoyed by those he was encouraging? Undoubtedly. Being bound in prison must have been excruciating for someone so passionate about spreading the word about Jesus.

But did his natural human desire to be free prevent him from desiring the good of his brothers and sisters in Christ?

Absolutely not. Paul’s lack didn’t stop him from pouring out his surplus of wisdom from the Lord to help the body of Christ, knowing their gain meant ultimate gain for all.

Imprisonment did not quash his cheering. It did not keep him from rejoicing in the Lord with those on the other side.

There are three important things we can learn from this.

1. Every win can become our win.

When we understand the corporate purpose for which Jesus died, every win for the Kingdom of God becomes our win. We see any gains in the gospel as our own, even when they aren’t credited to us on earth. What a powerful, unifying mentality!

2. Every loss should become our loss.

Competition in the Kingdom should become offensive and be seen as a loss. Breaking other believers down needs to be seen as a corporate mark. Paul modeled this mentality. It was learned through a burning love for Jesus — and the furthering of the gospel—and then funneled down to people, which is the way it will also work for us.

3. Love doesn’t come naturally to us.

This might be something we’ve not recognized before, but surely our volatile behavior on the internet and to strangers who disagree with our points of view has proven the point.

Perhaps the biggest reason we struggle so much to cheer for others is because we have tried to first force people-love without the help of God. Cheering for others won’t happen without that core Jesus-love. We just aren’t that altruistic.

We can rejoice with people in our lack only out of the abundance of love God has lavished on us, and when we find that, alone, to be enough.

We have it in us to cheer for another person—we have God in our bones. This is a beautiful thought. Let Him seep out of your mouth, your smile, your very pores when someone gets blessed or honored. You are fully loved by God, and out of that fullness you can feel joy in the gain of another.

Did you get that? Feel joy in the gain of another. This is next-level from simple acceptance of another’s gain. What if more of us came to this healthy place? How might it look in the Body of Christ? Perhaps we would be more aligned with the early church model we see in Acts 2—the one we always look to emulate in the church.

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

— Acts 2:42–47

Note the health and maturity of these early believers’ hearts.

Talents and gifts were cheered by all.

• Abundance was shared by all.

• No one was jealous of what anyone else had.

The result was powerful Kingdom growth.

As you and I “encourage one another and build each other up,” we take on the tone of the early church (1 Thessalonians 5:11). And when we flip the script on our definition of church, we will watch the church change. Home church. Megachurch. Small, intimate congregation. These are all simply preferences. For too long we’ve focused on church structure. But issues of the heart aren’t solved by more square footage, better light fixtures, or worship style.

Jesus doesn’t care about the stats or the aesthetics. He cares about why we do what we do.

We can change. I want us to change—to be honest, grow, and deal with character issues like this with better discipleship, starting with our leaders. I want to change. I want to cheer louder for people in the coming years of my life than I ever have before, even when it’s hard. The hard good of this seemingly lesser hard of life cannot be missed because its impact on who you become is monumental.

The heart issues that die hardest in us are often the quieter, nagging places God has been speaking to us about the longest but we have ignored. How long have you been privately struggling to cheer for others? Take on that history and start a new one today.

Entitlement, jealousy, and bitterness can all be part of your past. Love, in which their win is your win, can be a part of your future. Cheering for others is possible:

It will change you for the better.

It will keep bitterness from breaking you down.

It will honor God, who will honor you back.

If this feels hard to you, today, please remember: the harder road leads to the better human.

Excerpted with permission from The Hard Good by Lisa Whittle, copyright Lisa Whittle.

Who are you cheering for today?

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 6, 2021

Article by Greg Morse
Staff writer, desiringGod.org

When Jesus analyzed his times, he did not flatter his generation. We can paraphrase him as saying, “Your generation is like a group of spoiled children, expecting the other kids — and their God — to do as they command.”

His actual words:

To what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.” (Matthew 11:16–17)

That generation played happy music and sad music, and expected the Messiah and John the Baptist to respond appropriately. If the children played the flute, John must tighten his leather belt and dance. If they played a sad song, the Son of God must mourn. They expected compliance to their tune.

More than that, Jesus depicts the people of his day as children who change the rules and move the goalposts. When John did not come eating and drinking, they said he had a demon (Matthew 11:18). When Jesus did come eating and drinking, they called him a glutton and a drunkard (Matthew 11:19). Drink or not drink, eat or not eat, those children would not be appeased with anything less than full allegiance.

Is our generation much different today?

Get to Dancing

Today the children still play their music and expect Christ’s people to respond appropriately. “The course of this world” (Ephesians 2:2) still runs against Christ and his gospel, as it has since Adam and Eve first played the serpent’s song in Eden. This generation promotes its own ideals and often is not satisfied until Christians love what it loves and hate what it hates.

The “gender” song plays throughout society:

Boys can be girls, and girls can be boys;

We are our maker — our bodies, our toys.

The flute celebrates homosexuality:

It’s brave to be different; it’s okay to be you.

Boy and boy, girl and girl? — it’s called “marriage” too.

A dirge plays at the gravesite of masculinity:

While forever grateful, we’ve no need to pretend

That Eve still needs Adam or this world needs men.

Meanwhile, the lament of self-proclaimed victimhood sounds forth:

Racism, sexism, and hidden aggression,

Turn left or turn right, all I see is oppression!

And of course, they softly play the soothing abortion lullaby:

It is not a baby — don’t feel any shame.

It hasn’t a voice or a smile or a name.

Why So Serious?

The point is not that this world is unbroken by sin — including actual racism, sexism, injustice, and more. Rather, the point is that this generation, in total rebellion to the kingship of Jesus Christ, arrogantly seeks to enforce its view of right and wrong upon his people. The world desires, as it did with the Baptist and the Messiah, our allegiance.

“The children of this generation will not agree to disagree — you must dance; you must mourn.”

The children of this generation will not agree to disagree — you must dance; you must mourn. They check your face for tears and your feet for proper rhythm. If you cry during their cheerful song, you have a demon. If your feet dance to another tune, you are a drunkard, sinner, and glutton. Refuse to consent, and the new powers try to cancel you as a champion of hate. Nonconformity to the world is met with consequences.

Not of this World

Some of us dance and cry with the world too long, it seems to me, out of a mistaken assumption. When they slander and dislike us for following Christ, tender consciences might assume that we are to blame. We weren’t winsome enough when sharing the gospel. It must be our fault somehow. What could we have done differently?

Do we consider that the petulant child will wag its finger, name call, and worse, not necessarily because of a bad decision we made but because of a gracious decision made about us? “If you were of the world,” our Lord tells us, “the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19).

Our winsomeness, our cultural relevance, and our trying to disclaim everything to the point of non-offense can’t substitute for dancing. The world will still hate us — or should hate us (John 15:20) — because we aren’t the decisive reason for their hatred; Jesus is. His choosing us out of the world — not our inability to tastefully decline this world — is fundamentally what makes the Christian hated in this life.

Will You Dance?

They will dislike us not fundamentally because of a choice Jesus made, but because of Jesus himself. When we notice the world against us, Jesus would have us know something: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18).

“A moment will come — if it hasn’t already — where we must decide whom to displease: Christ or this generation.”

The children dislike you because the children dislike Christ. They hate that the King, now risen from the dead, still will not dance or weep on cue. While we continue to grow in our ability to faithfully engage unbelievers, Jesus would have us realize that their frowns and scowls and slanders are strikes at a Christ they can no longer crucify.

Decide now. A moment will come — if it hasn’t already — where we must decide whom to displease: Christ or this generation. Perhaps you’ve already started to nod your head, rock, and sway to the beat.

Listen instead to Christ’s voice. Hear his gospel song calling you home through the wilderness of this world. Resist being swept away with this world: “The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17). And who knows if one of these children might see that piercing light in you (that they’ve been trying to extinguish) and turn in repentance to Christ.

So many things are happening in these last days to confuse even the children of God, if that were possible… We are being asked to believe and fall in line with, and do as we are told for the good of “world community.”  But in reality, the gospel is the truth that brings hope and salvation to the world and they want nothing to do with it.  Listen and discern the lies of the world.  Stand firm in the truth that you know from God.  Worship God alone.  Do His will and you will be blessed in this life and prepared for the one to come!

Pastor Dale