Notes of Faith January 24, 2022

Article by Marshall Segal
Staff writer, desiringGod.org

Today marks forty-nine years since the society-altering, life-plundering, God-mocking decision by the Supreme Court in Roe versus Wade. Since 1973, abortion has essentially been available on demand in America, leaving the lives of the unborn at the precarious whims of people who value their own lives above the lives of their children.

From the beginning, the delivery room has been a sacred and cursed place. Sin invaded the world, and the womb, before the first child was born. When God warned Eve, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children,” Eve had not born a child without pain. Childbirth was never painless. And it was never less than miraculous.

We’re so acquainted (and enamored) with babies now, it’s nearly impossible to imagine what it would have been like to meet the first. To see those first tiny feet. To stroke that first tiny head. To hear those first weak cries. To hold that first tiny frame. Can you imagine bearing your baby, delivering your baby, holding your baby, without having seen a baby before?

“Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, ‘I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord’” (Genesis 4:1). That first birth may have been the most breathtaking in history — the wild inbreaking of a new, unique, and eternal life, woven together by God from the love between that first husband and his wife. The two became one, and then, just as dramatically, three. Birth, for them, was not a choice to make, but a wonder to behold and receive with worship to their Maker.

We, however, live in a society at war over where exactly in those five short words the first baby came to life: “Eve conceived and bore Cain.” At what point was that little boy’s life a life worth preserving and defending?

Bitter Fruit of Abortion

How might that first mother — that first woman to bear the weight and pain and wonder of new life — how might Eve respond if she heard that, just this year, nearly a million mothers in the United States alone refused the life within them? What if someone told her that we kill, on average, thousands of our children every day before they even take a breath? Could she have possibly imagined that the consequences of those first sins would one day bear the bitter and brutal fruit of abortion?

Maybe she could have. That first baby, after all, went on to murder his little brother. Eve felt the sinfulness of sin as pain multiplied within her through pregnancy and delivery, and then she felt the sinfulness of sin even more as she buried her second born. And were the temptations that provoked Cain, and wiped out Abel, all that different from those fueling the abortion industry in our day? Pride, envy, selfishness, resentment, anger, greed.

Because of sin, no child has ever been born into a safe world. Far fewer children, however, have been born into a country as unsafe as ours. The United States, even in 2022, is still one of the most dangerous places on earth for an unborn person. Clark Forsythe, in his excellent book Abuse of Discretion, writes,

The United States is an outlier when it comes to the scope of the abortion “right.” The United States is one of approximately ten nations (of 195) that allow abortion after fourteen weeks of gestation. . . . When it comes to allowing abortion for any reason after viability, however, the United States is joined only by Canada, North Korea, and China. (126)

“The United States of America in 2022 is still one of the most dangerous places on earth for an unborn person.”

The twin verdicts read on January 22, 1973 did not, as is often assumed, merely permit abortion for the first three months. No, they legalized abortion at every stage of pregnancy, and for almost any reason. The U.S. is one of only four countries in the world — only four — that refuses to protect the unborn even after viability. And what defines viability? “Having reached such a stage of development as to be capable of living, under normal conditions, outside the uterus.” The U.S. and Canada are half of the nations worldwide that will not defend a baby even when that baby could already survive outside the womb. The other two are North Korea and China.

For nearly fifty years now, the United States has made the womb a minefield, and millions of our sons and daughters have become the innocent casualties of our lust for sex, for freedom, for power, for self.

Abuse of Discretion

Roe is the national monument to this decades-long death march.

The surprising, perplexing, overreaching ruling of the seven justices — Burger, Douglas, Brennan, Stewart, Marshall, Blackmun, and Powell (White and Rehnquist voted against) — superseded abortion laws at the state level and functionally established a woman’s right to have an abortion at any point of her pregnancy.

In 1970, “Jane Roe” (Norma McCorvey) filed a lawsuit against Henry Wade, her local district attorney, to challenge a Texas law that prohibited abortion except to save the life of the mother. Forsythe summarizes the Supreme Court’s controversial verdict:

Roe had two essential rulings based on interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which declares, in part, that no state shall deprive any “person” of “liberty.” First, the Justices interpreted “liberty” to include a “right to privacy” and held that abortion is part of the right to privacy. . . . Second, the Court held that the “unborn” are not included with other “persons” protected by the Constitution. (7)

So, a woman’s right to privacy was interpreted to include her right to abortion — despite the fact that the procedure is not done in true privacy (doctors and nurses are involved). And the unborn were not considered living people with rights, despite the wealth of medical information that suggested otherwise (not to mention, the amazing advances in technology since, which only give us better and better windows into all the evidence for real life in the womb).

Kevin DeYoung helpfully distills the myths about Roe that Forsythe exposes in his book. For instance,

Abortion was a common and widely accepted practice throughout history. No, it was rare for most of history because it was exceedingly dangerous.

Roe was based on a careful investigation of the facts. No, the deliberation spent very little time discussing facts, and focused almost exclusively on procedure.

Women were dying by the thousands because of back-alley abortions. No, at that time less than a hundred women died from illegal abortions each year, a fraction of the number reported.

Abortion is safer than childbirth. No, the seven studies that said as much at the time have all been exposed for their lack of medical data, and the short-term and long-term dangers of abortion have only become clearer and clearer, especially to the mental health of the mother.

The American public is polarized over abortion. No, the majority of Americans at the time and still today do not support abortion on demand — abortion at any time for any reason (the precedent Roe instituted).

The more one reads about the decision, the more indefensible it becomes. It really is difficult to overstate how weak the case was for perhaps the most pivotal, controversial, and corrupt verdict in our nation’s history.

The Other Roe: Redefining Health

Alongside Roe, though, was a second, similarly monumental (and yet often overlooked) case: Doe v Bolton. The ruling was handed down the same day, and was every bit as consequential.

“Mary Doe” (Sandra Cano) filed a lawsuit against the Attorney General of Georgia, Arthur K. Bolton, challenging a law that permitted abortion only in cases of rape, severe fetal deformity, or the possibility of severe or fatal injury to the mother. In the Doe decision, the justices redefined the “health” of the mother from those stricter parameters to “all factors — physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age — relevant to the wellbeing of the patient. All these factors may relate to health” (Abuse of Discretion, 150). As a result of the decision, “‘Health,’ in abortion law, means emotional well-being without limits” (8).

Functionally, this meant abortion could be justified at any time of the pregnancy for almost any reason. “Where Roe prevented any prohibition on abortion before viability, the Doe health exception eliminated prohibitions after viability as well” (8). Any consequence the mother felt — and bearing a human life is always consequential — became an excuse to end the life. We went from protecting the physical survival of the mother to preserving her sexual freedom and personal autonomy.

Forsythe quotes a Harvard Law Professor,

Doe’s broad definition of “health” spelled the doom of statutes designed to prevent the abortion late in the pregnancy of children capable of surviving outside the mother’s body unless the mother’s health was in danger. By defining health as “well-being,” Doe established a regime of abortion-on-demand for the entire nine months of pregnancy, something that American public opinion has never approved in any state, let alone nationally. (151)

Sandra Cano, it’s worth mentioning, ultimately decided not to have an abortion after she felt her baby kick (94).

The New Roe: Life at Fifteen Weeks

Even if a case were to overturn Roe, that decision in and of itself would not end abortion. Overturning Roe wouldn’t dam the river of child-killing, but it would stem the terrible tide — and unleash possibilities for new pro-life legislation. Ending Roe would return the debate to the states, which would once again give the American people the power to decide — a change faithful Christians and churches welcome and pray for.

As I write, for instance, the Supreme Court has already heard arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization about a Mississippi law that prohibits abortion after fifteen weeks (an opportunity made possible by new appointees to the Court). The justices are specifically arguing over the question, Are all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions unconstitutional?

“If Roe is overturned, Christians and churches will play an even bigger role in saving human lives.”

Whatever happens in this case, this is the future of the abortion debate: state by state, election by election, neighborhood by neighborhood advocacy for life. Forsythe reminds us, “If Roe were overturned today, abortion would be legal in at least forty-one states tomorrow, perhaps all fifty. . . . The long-term legality of abortion depends on public opinion” (348, 351). That means that if Roe is overturned, Christians and churches will play an even bigger role in saving human lives.

The Power of Wanted Pregnancy

Wherever the Dobbs case leads, and however long Roe stands, our country desperately needs to recover the sanity and wonder of wanted pregnancy. What might change in our debates, our laws, our clinics, our families if the collective American imagination awakened to the God-soaked miracle of new life?

You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. (Psalm 139:13–16)

Today, we pause to mourn fifty million lives abandoned — their forming assaulted, their weaving unraveled, their making arrested, their needs discarded, their stories suddenly and violently ended. God will repay what was stolen from them.

But we also pause to pray for Him to intervene and interrupt the killing. As personally and specifically and sovereignly as He made each one of us, would He now so personally and specifically and sovereignly tear down the calamity of abortion in our land?

God may not stop this heinous killing of innocent unborn life.  They are His.  He made them.  He takes them eternally to be with Him.  But the punishment for those who choose such selfish, sinful behavior, will also be eternal, unless forgiven for a repentant heart, and saving faith in Jesus Christ. 

It seems that this particular standard puts the United States among the worst that the world has to offer in all human rights violations. We must stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves, none more so than the unborn child.

God is at work and His will cannot be denied.  May we see His glory and the wonder of the millions of children He has taken to Himself when we are with Him in glory!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 23, 2022

We don’t discuss graveyards to brighten our day.

Cemeteries aren’t typically known for their inspiration. But an exception was found in a graveyard near Bethany. And that one exception is exceptional.

A man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany with his sisters, Mary and Martha. This is the Mary who later poured the expensive perfume on the Lord’s feet and wiped them with her hair. Her brother, Lazarus, was sick. So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling Him,

Lord, your dear friend is very sick. — John 11:1-3 NLT

John weighted the opening words of the chapter with reality: “A man named Lazarus was sick.” Your journal might reveal a comparable statement. “A woman named Judy was tired.” “A father named Tom was confused.” “A youngster named Sophia was sad.”

Lazarus was a real person with a real problem. He was sick; his body ached; his fever raged; his stomach churned. But he had something going for him. Or, better stated, he had Someone going for him. He had a friend named Jesus, the water-to-wine, stormy-sea-to-calm-waters, picnic-basket-to- buffet Jesus. Others were fans of Christ. Lazarus was friends with him.

So the sisters of Lazarus sent Jesus a not-too-subtle message: “Lord, Your dear friend is very sick.”

They appealed to the love of Jesus and stated their problem.

They did not tell Him how to respond. No presumption. No overreaching or underreacting. They simply wrapped their concern in a sentence and left it with Jesus. A lesson for us perhaps?

Christ responded to the crisis of health with a promise of help.

But when Jesus heard about it He said, ‘Lazarus’s sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this’. 

— John 11:4 NLT

It would have been easy to misunderstand this promise. The listener could be forgiven for hearing “Lazarus will not face death or endure death.” But Jesus made a different promise: “This sickness will not end in death.” Lazarus, we learn, would find himself in the valley of death, but he would not stay there.

The messenger surely hurried back to Bethany and told the family to take heart and have hope.

Yet

He [Jesus] stayed where He was for the next two days. — John 11:6 NLT

The crisis of health was exacerbated by the crisis of delay. How many times did Lazarus ask his sisters, “Is Jesus here yet?” How many times did they mop his fevered brow and then look for Jesus’ coming? Did they not assure one another, “Any minute now Jesus will arrive”? But days came and went. No Jesus. Lazarus began to fade. No Jesus. Lazarus died. No Jesus.

When Jesus arrived at Bethany, He was told that Lazarus had already been in his grave for four days. — John 11:17 NLT

“Israel’s rabbinic faith taught that for three days a soul lingered about a body, but on the fourth day it left permanently.”1 Jesus was a day late, or so it seemed.

The sisters thought he was.

When Martha got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet Him. But Mary stayed in the house. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if only You had been here, my brother would not have died’. — John 11:20-21 NLT

She was disappointed in Jesus. “If only you had been here.”

Christ did not meet her expectations. By the time Jesus arrived, Lazarus had been dead for the better part of a week. In our day his body would have been embalmed or cremated, the obituary would have been printed, the burial plot purchased, and the funeral at least planned, if not completed.

I know this to be true because I’ve planned many funerals.

And in more memorials than I can count, I’ve told the Lazarus story. I’ve even dared to stand near the casket, look into the faces of modern-day Marthas, Marys, Matthews, and Michaels and say, “Maybe you, like Martha, are disappointed. You told Jesus about the sickness. You waited at the hospital bed. You kept vigil in the convalescent room.

You told Him that the one He loved was sick, sicker, dying.

And now death has come. And some of you find yourselves, like Mary, too bereaved to speak. Others, like Martha, too bewildered to be silent. Would you be willing to imitate the faith of Martha?”

Look again at her words:

Lord, if only You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask. — John 11:21-22 NLT, emphasis mine

How much time do you suppose passed between the “if only” of verse 21 and the “even now I know” of verse 22?

What caused the change in her tone? Did she see something in the expression of Christ? Did she remember a promise from the past? Did His hand brush away her tear?

Did His confidence calm her fear? Something moved Martha from complaint to confession.

Jesus responded with a death-defying promise:

Jesus told her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ ‘Yes,’ Martha said, ‘he will rise when everyone else rises, at the last day.’ Jesus told her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in Me will live, even after dying… Do you believe this?’ — John 11:23-26 NLT

The moment drips with drama.

Look to whom Jesus asked this question: a bereaved, heartbroken sister.

Look at where Jesus stood as He asked this question: within the vicinity, perhaps in the center, of a cemetery.

Look at when Jesus asked this question: four days too late. Lazarus, His friend, was four days dead, four days gone, four days buried. 

Martha has had plenty of time to give up on Jesus. Yet now this Jesus has the audacity to pull rank over death and ask, “Do you believe this, Martha? Do you believe that I am Lord of all, even of the cemetery?” Maybe she answered with a lilt in her voice, with the conviction of a triumphant angel, fists pumping the air and face radiant with hope. Give her reply a dozen exclamation marks if you want, but I don’t. I hear a pause, a swallow. I hear a meek

Yes, Lord,… I have always believed You are the Messiah, the Son of God, the One who has come into the world from God. — John 11:27 NLT

Martha wasn’t ready to say Jesus could raise the dead. Even so, she gave Him a triple tribute: “the Messiah,” “the Son of God,” and “the One who has come into the world.”

She mustered a mustard-seed confession. That was enough for Jesus.

Martha fetched her sister. Mary saw Christ and wept. And

when Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within Him, and He was deeply troubled. ‘Where have you put him?’ He asked them. They told Him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Then Jesus wept. — John 11:33-35 NLT

What caused Jesus to weep? Did He cry at the death of His friend? Or the impact death had on His friends? Did He weep out of sorrow? Or anger? Was it the fact of the grave or its control over people that broke His heart?

It must have been the latter because a determined, not despondent, Jesus took charge. Jesus told them to roll the stone away. Martha hesitated. Who wouldn’t? He insisted.

She complied. Then came the command, no doubt the only command ever made to a cadaver. Jesus, prone as He was to thank God for impossible situations, offered a prayer of gratitude, and

then Jesus shouted, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in grave-clothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth. Jesus told them, ‘Unwrap him and let him go!’ 
— John 11:43-44 NLT

“Don’t miss the message of this miracle,” I love to say at funerals, although careful not to get too animated, because, after all, it is a memorial service. Still, I indulge in some excitement. “You are never alone. Jesus meets us in the cemeteries of life. Whether we are there to say goodbye or there to be buried, we can count on the presence of God.”

He is

Lord both of the dead and of the living.

— Romans 14:9 ESV

An encore is scheduled. Lazarus was but a warm-up. Jesus will someday shout, and the ingathering of saints will begin.

Graveyards, ocean depths, battlefields, burned buildings, and every other resting place of the deceased will give up the dead in whatever condition they might be found. They will be recomposed, resurrected, and re-presented in the presence of Christ. Salvation of the saints is not merely the redemption of souls but also the recollection of souls and bodies.

When we are in Christ, we grieve, but we grieve with hope.

Lazarus is proof of this. His death proved that our Savior grieves death with us. Jesus cares and understands and feels the weight of death just like we do. But as the conqueror of death, Jesus knows death is not the end. It is simply the beginning of a life we cannot imagine during our lives on earth. So grieve here, today.

Receive the comfort of Christ in your sorrow, but hold fast to the promise that the sorrow you feel in the night makes way for joy in the morning.

Father, I know you are my comforter. I know you are strong when I am weak. I know you are hope when I am hopeless. I need all these from you today—comfort, strength, and hope—because I cannot muster them on my own. When I am deep in grief, all I see is darkness, and all I feel is hopeless. But you empathize with this pain. You know it well. Remind me of your love during this time. Remind me that I can share my thoughts and struggles with you. You are not afraid of negative feelings. Hold me as I walk through this season of grief. Don’t let me run away from it, but also don’t let me fall into despair. Guide me toward the hope and light I have in Christ. In his name, amen.

1. Bruner, Gospel of John, 664.

Excerpted from God Will Help You by Max Lucado, copyright Max Lucado.

What are you grieving today, or what have you grieved most recently? What has your grieving process looked like? How does it feel to know Jesus also experienced grief?

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 22, 2022

Let me tell you about one of my life’s little grenades that exploded because I wasn’t checking in with myself. Have you ever had someone do you dirty? (We all nod yes because duh.) 

But I mean, like, have you ever had someone just wrong you? Betray you? I’m not talking about somebody who took your parking spot or said your dog was annoying. I’m talking about someone who yanked the rug out from beneath you.

Then they rolled you up in that rug and tossed it off a cliff.  

This one time I felt like I’d been literally cut. Cut so deeply that it was like slicing my finger with a sharp knife. Do you know what I’m talking about? That panicky sensation of a fresh wound? At first, you feel nothing but ice-cold numbness. You think, Oh man. When that starts hurting, it’s going to hurt. And when the pain finally sets in, you can feel it throbbing with every beat of your heart.  

Well, I’ve been there. And in this particular situation, it felt less like a finger slice and more like an ax in my back.  

I felt betrayed. That’s a strong word, I know. And in hindsight it was all probably just bad judgment on this other person’s part.

But at the time, babaaaay, it felt raw. It felt so personal and intentional. It rattled me like I was an old, rusty cage. I was so torn up inside that I honestly thought I was losing it.  

Before we get into the details, here’s my official disclaimer: the names and details of all my stories have been changed to protect the innocent... and the guilty.  

I had a guy friend working for me whom I was very close with.

Let’s call him Nathan. Nathan and I were basically family. And before I hired him, I called him up. Call it woman’s intuition, call it paranoia, call it whatever, but I remember calling him and just saying, “Hey, don’t do me wrong. Just do right by me, and we will have a very successful working relationship. I’ll be good to you.”  

And Nathan did a great job. He was thorough, sharp, and thoughtful. Then one day, I got an email from Nathan. Only, this email didn’t come from his regular work email address; it came from another work email address.

Like: YourLyingEmployee@YourCompetitor.com  

Well that can’t be right, I thought. He works for me.  

But not only was this another work email address, it was the business of a very close friend of mine who happened to be in the same industry as me. My friend who also had no idea that Nathan was actually supposed to be working for me and just me.  

Honey, I saw red. I was so hurt, so angry, so mad. It felt like Nathan used me to get somewhere else. Somewhere that was, in his mind at least, better and greater than working for me.  

When you work in my field, you get this a lot. Users. I feel like I always have to watch my back and be on high alert for people whose intentions are less than honorable. It’s exhausting.  

Anyway, Nathan’s actions reinforced some of my most crippling insecurities at that time — that I was just a stepping-stone to the next, better thing. And I didn’t know how to deal.  

So I did what you would probably do. I told my mama on him.

And I remember knowing that I was a little more freaked out than the situation called for, but I was no longer in control of my reactions. I couldn’t calm down. I couldn’t get ahold of my thoughts, emotions, or myself. I went from raging mad to stonily silent. I paced. I couldn’t sit still. My mind was racing. I cried angry tears.

I was like, “Who can we call to fix this? What’s our game plan? How can we retaliate?”  

Mama just looked at me. You know the look. The look that I could read. It said: We ain’t doing anything about this, child.

You’ve got to handle yourself.  

My mama is an incredibly wise woman. She saw that there was something very not right with me. But instead of telling me I was acting like a crazy person, she told me as kindly but firmly as possible that it was time I went and saw a professional.  

Basically, Take some personal ownership, Michelle. Like, Maybe this is less of a Nathan problem and more of a Michelle one.  

At the time, I had never been to formal counseling before.

Where I came from, church was your therapy. I figured only rich white people got professional help, and that wasn’t me. We weren’t poor or anything, but I had grown up in a very middle-class home. I didn’t even know that insurance covered a good portion of each session — I was clueless.  

But my mama said I needed to go, and my mama is not someone I like to cross to this day. So I went. And the direction of my life was changed forever. For one, therapy helped me avoid going to prison for assault and battery charges. And two, my counselor, Sandy, helped me see that yes, in fact, my rage over the Nathan deal had become some- thing way bigger than it should have been. Like, my reaction should have been a 4 out of 10, and it was a 10 + 10 + 10 out of 10.  

Without checking in, I had become completely unaware of myself. I was on autopilot. And the flight plan was beginning to look like a kamikaze mission.  

Let me explain it this way: Have you ever had a bruise that you didn’t realize you had? You banged your shin on the coffee table and just forgot about it? You don’t even remember you’re hurt until a little pressure is put on that same area. And then, boy oh boy, do you remember. It hurts — it stings!  

I didn’t know I had such a bruised heart until Nathan pressed down on my untended wounds.  

And if you would have asked me how I was doing at that time, my surface answer would have been, “Fine. Okay. Just doing life over here.” You know? But the truth is, I wasn’t being honest with myself. I wasn’t taking the time to evaluate anything on an authentically deep level. I wasn’t checking in.  

Sandy and I would go on to spend hundreds of hours together. But it was in that first session that I learned it was my responsibility to keep a watch on my own heart.

Like, Oh, you mean I’ve got to do some work to stay healthy?

Duh, Michelle. Duh.

Together, Sandy and I started digging away at the dirt of my experiences. We talked about the situation with Nathan, but it was obvious that he wasn’t the real issue. The real issue was what had caused me to stop being aware of what I was feeling in the first place. When did I stop feeling like myself?

When did I become a person who would fly into a fit of rage over something petty?  

With Sandy’s help I began excavating those hardened places I had unknowingly built around my heart. And what I uncovered was something I think I had known deep down for a while but had never been able to admit. I suffer from depression. Real, clinical, need-to-be-medicated depression.  

And you might be thinking, Excuse me? What does Michelle Williams got to be depressed about? You got a little bit of money. You got a little bit of fame. You sang in one of the most successful groups of all time.  

But one message that doesn’t get shared enough is that depression can hit anybody. It hits male, female, upper-class, middle-class, lower-class, no class. Every race and every spiritual background. It can seek you out and find you anywhere, with or without “justifiable” cause. What I mean by that is that depression comes in all forms. Sometimes it’s chemical.  

Sometimes it’s genetic.

Sometimes it’s situational.

Sometimes it’s because of unmet spiritual needs. Sometimes it’s because your husband left or you can’t get pregnant or you got fired.  

Depression is an assassin. It acts like a silent, slow killer. And if you don’t deal with it, it can swallow you up.  

And that’s where I was the first time I walked into Sandy’s office.

My depression had me so disconnected, so numb, and yet, so short-fused. I was more than a train wreck; I was an earthquake waiting to happen, and everybody in my life was walking up and down my fault lines, risking receiving either my rage or my numbness with each interaction.  

I remember the first time I realized there was something off with my emotions. I was in junior high school, around seventh grade.

I kept feeling like something was different about me when I compared my behaviors and emotions to my friends’. I knew that I was kinda sad all the time, but I couldn’t tell you the first reason why. I was isolating myself, losing interest in things I used to love, and my grades started dropping.  

Classic symptoms of depression. But I didn’t have a name for it.

I didn’t feel like I looked like a person who would be considered depressed, you know? But of course, I’ve learned that depression does not always have a look.  

Then, in my twenties, while I was still in Destiny’s Child, I remember telling someone on our team at the time, “Hey, I feel like I might be depressed.” And he was like, “What do you have to be depressed about? You guys just signed a multimillion-dollar deal. You’re about to go on tour. You guys are about to release your own Barbie dolls.”  

I mean, who gets a Barbie doll replica of themselves but can barely find the motivation to get out of bed every day?  

So I thought, Maybe I’m just tired. Maybe I’m just missing my family.  

By the time I got my actual diagnosis of clinical depression, I was thirty years old. Do I wish I had known sooner? Of course I do. But that wasn’t what happened. God was still there. He knows all about depression. And no, it’s not that being depressed is a sin.  

Y’all should read the Bible. It’s good stuff, I’m telling you. Because we’re out here in the twenty-first century thinking that we invented this depression stuff, that it’s a modern problem.

But that’s not true. Even the Bible talks about the idea of having a sound mind:  

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity or cowardice or fear, but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of sound judgment and personal discipline [abilities that result in a calm, well-balanced mind and self-control]. 

— 2 Timothy 1:7 

It’s true. God has not given us a spirit of default fear, sadness, or despair. He hasn’t given us a spirit of I-can’t-handle-it, but-they-deserve-it, excuse-making behaviors.

Those are not from God. Actually, the opposite is true. God has given us some real power through the gift of His Holy Spirit. He’s given us some guidelines in His Word to help us gain some control over our thoughts, emotions, and actions.

He’s given us some people around us who can help. Some resources that can renew our minds and attitudes. And most of all, He’s given us access to Him.  

Maybe your experience is a little different. Maybe you started feeling depressed after a specific event.

Maybe depressed isn’t even the term you would use, but you started feeling disconnected from things and people, including yourself.  

You lost a job. Your man left. Your child was born with a diagnosis. A loved one passed away. God didn’t answer your prayers the way you thought he would. Someone you looked up to disappointed you.  

At some point, you stopped asking yourself the hard questions:  

• Have I been letting myself feel my feelings?

• Am I withholding forgiveness from myself or others?

• What lies am I believing to be the truth?

• You stopped checking in like I had.

Excerpted from Checking In by Michelle Williams, copyright Michelle Williams. 

Are you checking in? God didn’t create us to leave us in depression and despair. He doesn’t want us to feel disconnected and alone. He created us for community and wholeness! Out of love and for family. Who do you need to connect with today?

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 21, 2022

The Life of Christ Speaks of Sacramentality  

If the life of Christ shows us anything, it’s that the Stuff of Earth is meant to point us to the substance of Heaven. How? Consider the way He came eating and drinking.

Jesus’ best buddy, John, set out to record the life of Christ, miracles and all, and what was the first miracle he recorded? It was a sacramental miracle, one in which Jesus used creation to draw attention to the Creator. Exercise your scriptural imagination with me.1  

A rabbi, a tax collector, and a fisherman walk into a bar where a wedding party is celebrating the vows of a new marriage. But as the entourage makes its way to the hors d’oeuvres line, the rabbi’s mother (a party guest) interrupts, wringing her hands.

The wine has run dry, she says. Fix it, Jesus, she says. Jesus (the rabbi) points to the water jugs by the door, the kind used in purification ceremonies. Take the purification jugs, he says, the jugs reserved for holding the cleansing water. Fill them to the brim. Go find the sommelier, he says. (Maybe they spoke French; who’s to say?) When the sommelier arrives, the rabbi asks him to draw a drink from the jugs, and when the man does, what does he find? The good stuff, full-bodied. The best wine of the wedding.

See the miracle? Jesus took the water in those jugs, jugs which were kept around to remind the partygoers of their need for purification, and replaced it with good, strong, whizz-bang-inducing drink. The water of the purification was replaced by the pure wine of a new reality. But Jesus didn’t create wine for the sake of creating wine. It was a sacramental transformation meant to point those who witnessed it to the divine care of a loving God.

“Emmanuel,” Mary might have said as she witnessed the miracle. “God with Us.”

God with Us, who came creating new wine. God with Us, the source and solution of a party of problems. God with Us, who came caring about His fellow wedding guests. God with Us, a man inviting us to a wedding where sacramental wine never runs dry.

The Life of Christ Speaks of Sacramentality Again and Again

Over and over again, Christ used the whizz-bang-producing Stuff of Earth — water, wine, bread — as means of drawing us deeper into the cosmic communion. Consider the bread He broke, the wine He poured at the Last Supper. They were both the Stuff of Earth, but through them, He drew us into a divine reality. On the night He was betrayed, He took the bread, broke it, and said it was His body. Likewise, He took the wine and said it was His blood (Luke 22:19-20). The disciples didn’t have eyes to see in the moment, but Christ was using the materials of earth as sacramental objects, objects meant to pull them into His story, into His divine, sacrificial, all-satisfying love.

Even after His death and resurrection, Christ used the same bread and wine as an invitation into the divine reality. Recall the two followers of Christ who were making their way to Emmaus when a somehow-masked Christ met them. Remember how Christ walked with them, how He shared a village table with them that evening, how He broke the bread and poured the wine. In that shared meal made of earthly stuff, Luke records how Jesus revealed who He was:

Jesus was recognized by them when He broke the bread. — Luke 24:35

I Am the Sacrament

Bread and wine — these are, perhaps, the most poignant examples of how Jesus used the Stuff of Earth to point to the Creator, how He used it as an invitation to draw us into the love of God. But consider, too, Christ’s use of language, how He described himself as the objects of creation (that same Stuff of Earth) to help us understand and draw deeper into His love.

I am the light of the world, He said. I am the bread of life, He said. I am the vine, the water, the friend, the ultimate truth. He used the language of created things, the language of pleasure, to point to Himself.

The Question Worth the Price of a Soul

Christ used the pleasures of life to point us to the God who loves us, cares for us, satisfies us, and who wants to draw us deeper into participation with Him. And it’s not hard to imagine God using other pleasures of life — working, buying, selling, making babies, whatever — to point us to the Divine Love, is it? It’s not hard to imagine Him creating those pleasures at the foundation of the world and crying out, “These are the gifts of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!”

See? God so loved the world that He gave us the whizz-bang, that whosoever pays attention to the whizz-bang might not miss the point of this one life but might be drawn deeper into the Divine Love. If this is true, then why do we so often adore the pleasures of God as ends instead of as the means of drawing deeper into God’s love? Why do we turn these pleasures into coping mechanisms?

Screwtape Logic

In The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis’s fictitious work on devils, humans, and the mud holes of sin we’re so prone to waller in, Lewis imagines just how the whizz-bang-inducing scent of a rosebush can be fashioned into something more akin to a crown of thorns. In the narrative, Screwtape, the veteran tempter, writes letters to his nephew and rookie devil, Wormwood.

Screwtape offers advice to Wormwood, shares how the devil minor might draw his patient into the southern lake of fire. In one of those letters, Screwtape discusses the sacramental pleasures of God:

[God’s] a hedonist at heart. All those facts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a facade. Or only like foam on the seashore. Out at sea, out in His sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure. He makes no secret of it; at His right hand are “pleasures for evermore.” Ugh! I don’t think He has the least inkling of that high and austere mystery to which we rise in the Miserific Vision. He’s vulgar, Wormwood. He has a bourgeois mind. He has filled His world full of pleasures. There are things for humans to do all day long without His minding in the least—sleeping, washing, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working. Everything has to be twisted before it’s any use to us. We fight under cruel disadvantages. Nothing is naturally on our side.2

It’s a work of fiction, sure, but doesn’t it ring true? The things created by God — the Stuff of Earth — don’t always lead to dependency, attachment, or addiction. (I’m not addicted to wine at the moment, for example.) But through Screwtape’s subtle twisting of the pleasures, we come to chase the whizz-bang instead of the giver of the whizz-bang. And when we lose sight of the purpose of the whizz- bang, when we elevate the created over the Creator, the pleasure becomes its own dead end.

1. I was first acquainted with the term scriptural imagination while watching a YouTube video published by the Duke Divinity School. In the video, Dean Richard Hays defines scriptural imagination as “the capacity . . . to see the world through lenses given to us in Scripture.”

2. C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 83. 56

Excerpted from The Book of Waking Up by Seth Haines, copyright Seth Haines. 

How has God pulled you towards the divine reality through earthly materials? Are you paying attention and looking for the whizz-bang everyday? When life’s pleasures are offered, it can be easy to seek the whizz-bang itself, rather than the Creator of the whizz-bang. But he has come to us through the stuff of earth so that we may be drawn to Him in this life and be embraced by Him in the divine love.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 20, 2022

For I know that my Redeemer lives,
And He shall stand at last on the earth;
And after my skin is destroyed, this I know,
That in my flesh I shall see God,
Whom I shall see for myself,
And my eyes shall behold, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!
— Job 19:25-27 NKJV

Despite the storms that rage against me, Lord God, I will not become embittered against You. Would that I respond to hardship like Job who refused to doubt Your goodness in the face of relentless tragedy and loss.

For I know that my Redeemer lives. You are my Redeemer. You transform the crude sketches in my life into priceless works of art. In Your time, You make all things beautiful (Ecclesiastes 3:11), including my life. Perform Your redemptive work — but give me Your strength to hold on until the end.

My heart’s desire is to be more like You. As gold is refined in the fire, purge me of the dross that tarnishes your character in me (Romans 5:1-4). I look forward to the day when I will be able to see the changes You have made in my life.

You see the big picture — the forest — while I can see only the trees.

Although I may not fully understand the reason why I’m in this situation, one thing I do know: You are good, and Your mercy endures forever (Psalm 106:1).

Therefore, I will not give up. I will not allow the hardships I face to dictate to me my emotions and responses. Lord, I rest myself in Your care. I trust You. You are in control, and You know what You’re doing.

*

 Magnifying the Lord

I will bless the LORD at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul shall make its boast in the LORD;
The humble shall hear of it and be glad.
Oh, magnify the LORD with me,
And let us exalt His name together.
I sought the LORD, and He heard me,
And delivered me from all my fears. — Psalm 34:1-4 NKJV

This day, O God, I choose to bless Your name. I bless You because You are great, and Your greatness does not depend upon my circumstances. The problems of this world are mere child’s play in comparison to Your ability to overcome. So, I choose to focus on the Problem Solver rather than any problem.

I will boast in You, O God, because nothing is impossible for You (Matthew 19:26). Only You can make the impossible possible.

I proclaim Your name, O Lord. I ascribe greatness to You, my God, for You are the Rock. Your work is perfect and all Your ways are just (Deuteronomy 32:3-4). For this reason, I place my trust in You with confidence. You are greater than my problems; greater than my sins; greater than my sickness; greater than those who oppose me; greater than the powers of darkness; greater than my own shortcomings; greater than the failings of Your people; greater than the powers of human government; greater than my limited conceptions of how big You really are.

My God You are greater!

My power to overcome any situation comes only from You, because greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4). My heart’s desire is that Your great name will be made known throughout the earth, beginning in my life.

I lift my arms in surrender to the One who reigns above the heavens and the earth. There is no power on earth greater than Yours. No love stronger. No wisdom deeper. You alone stand above the earth, but You have willingly chosen to also stand beside me.

The fact that You are great, yet You choose to reveal Yourself to me through Your Son, Jesus, through Your Word, and through Your Holy Spirit, drives me to my knees in gratitude. You didn’t have to reveal Yourself to me, but You did. Now may Your greatness be revealed in my life so that others may see Your glory as well (Ezekiel 38:23).

*

Meditating on His Omnipotence and Omnipresence

And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia! For the LORD God Omnipotent reigns!” — Revelation 19:6 NKJV

Hallelujah! For the Lord God almighty reigns! The heavens and the earth are no match for Your awesome power and might. As You spoke through Your prophet Jeremiah,

Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me? — Jeremiah 32:27 NKJV

There is no mountain or battle too great that Your might cannot cast it into the deepest sea. Nothing is too hard for You.

Despite Your great power, I have nothing to fear. I revere Your great name, but I need not be afraid of You because Your love is as great as Your power.

Through Your Son, Jesus, Emmanuel, You are “God with us” (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23). Clothing Yourself in human flesh, You prove Your love and willingness to meet me at the point of my need. Jesus, You are God’s power and presence revealed. Only through You can I truly be freed from my bondage to sin.

God, where can I go to outrun Your love (Romans 8:35)? You have positioned Yourself right beside me, carrying me, encouraging me, believing in me. At the end of my rope, when I feel all alone, Your Word promises that You are with me (Hebrews 13:5) and that no one can snatch me from Your hand (John 10:28-29).

And because I cannot escape Your love, I also know I can go to You in prayer. You alone have the ability to answer my requests according to Your power and might.

Because You are all powerful, all present, all wise, and all loving, I can entrust the control of my life to You without fear of being unloved and uncared for. You have raised up Your people for the express purpose that You would show Your power in us, and that Your name would be declared in all the earth (Exodus 9:16).

And so here I am Lord, willingly giving to You the praise and honor befitting only You.

Excerpted from Battle Prayers by Michael Klassen & Thomas Freiling, copyright Michael Klassen and Thomas Freiling.

Struggle comes to us all, doesn’t it? Let’s face it with worship and adoration remembering that God is so much bigger and powerful than any trial we endure.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 19, 2022

In vain you rise early
and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat — for
He grants sleep to those He loves. — Psalm 127:2

Perhaps you’ve never thought of sleep as a gift from God. But it is. Sleep is a beautiful gift of peace and rest that comes from the Father’s hand. Let’s unwrap the gift of sleep today.

Imagine your loving creator handing you a beautifully wrapped package. He encourages you to untie the ribbon and let it fall away. He guides you to remove the wrapping and set it aside. He waits patiently as you open the box to discover a beautiful gift — the gift of sleep.

Sleep is a gift, for it allows us to process, restore, and strengthen our bodies and minds. As we drift through the sleep cycles, our mind is able to sort out the day’s events. We are able to organize information, file it away, and remember what is most important.

Each cell in our bodies benefits from sleep. Sleep rejuvenates us, repairs our tissues, and restores us after a long day of hard work.

Oh, what a beautiful gift from our heavenly Father! Since He created us, He knows just what our bodies need, so He created sleep. And not only do our physical bodies need sleep, but our spirits need God’s true rest.

Now, be assured that rising early, at the start of a new day, ready to work with willing hands, is a good thing. Starting the day with an anxious heart, however, isn’t beneficial at all.

Instead of rising early with burdens on your heart, consider starting your morning with a quiet meditation. Let God’s Word be the first words you hear each day. For His mercies are new every morning.

Then, as you move through your day, no matter what comes, you can recall the sweet words of wisdom you heard that morning. You can carry His Word with you as a guide, a comfort, and a peaceful meditation.

At the end of the day, resist the temptation to keep working and toiling into the night. Read the wise words of Solomon who, in Psalm 127:2 said,

In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat — for He grants sleep to those He loves.

Often, when sleep eludes us, it’s because we are holding on to the cares of this life. We struggle to let go of them because we struggle to trust God. We forget that God is sovereign over us, and He has given us sleep as a gift.

Dear one, the Lord watches over you when you wake and when you lie down. Imagine Him keeping watch over you.

Thank You, good Father, for the gift of sleep. Thank You for knowing just what I need at the end of a long day. Help me to release every worry and concern to You. Please cover me with Your peace and protection so that I can fully relax and find true rest in Your presence. Help me to surrender my life to You and receive the gift of true rest. I pray I find comfort and peace in Your presence. Please help me to let go of anything that is on my mind or in my heart. Thank You for loving me. Thank You for watching over me. Thank You for the gift of sleep. Amen.

Taken from  from Peace with the Psalms, by Abide Christian Meditation.

It’s easy with the worries and anxieties of the day and of this world to get caught in sleeplessness, tossing and turning at night instead of resting. God created sleep as a gift for us! Let’s pray that as we close the day, we can give our stress to Him and enter into His peace.

I needed this today.  I have been suffering from some sort of something that is stealing my sleep.  The pastor needs to take the lead in praying, studying God’s Word, believing and trusting in the truth! May God draw us all close to Himself to receive rest in time of need.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 18, 2022

Through the death of Christ upon the cross, sin itself was crucified for those who believe in Him.

From New York’s Fifth Avenue jewelry stores to the airport souvenir counters in Rome, Italy, one piece of jewelry is universally displayed — the cross.

What does the cross of Jesus mean?

If we stopped people on the street to ask that question we might hear, “It’s a symbol for Christianity, I guess.” If we asked them “What happened at the cross?” Some might say “Jesus was a martyr and was nailed to the cross.” Still others might say the cross was a myth. While most connect the emblem of the cross to religion, many do not understand its meaning.

Poet Thomas Victoria pictured Jesus on the cross, surrounded by men who were intent upon killing Him, and tried to express how Jesus might have spoken from the cross:

Oh, how sweet the wood of the cross,
How sweet the nails,
That I could die for you.

This deeply personal, intimate view of the cross is what the apostle Paul taught: that in the human experience it is a rare thing for one man to give his life for another,

yet the proof of God’s amazing love is this: that it was while we were sinners that Christ died for us. — Romans 5:8, Phillips

The focus of Paul’s ministry to the great commercial city of Corinth was summed up when he said,

For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 
— 1 Corinthians 2:2

But the average person in Corinth would have answered a question about the cross in the same way as the man on the street in the USA or any European, African, or Asian country.

They lived in a city which was known for its depraved moral character. It was the kind of town in which we wouldn’t want to raise our families.

The Corinthians were a sophisticated, sexually dissolute bunch, who thought that the cross was ridiculous, foolish, and even idiotic. Commenting on this view, Paul said,

The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 
— 1 Corinthians 1:25

The preaching of the cross of Christ was a stumbling block to the Jews and idiocy to the philosophic Greeks. The philosophers believed they could unravel divine mysteries because they were overconfident of their own mental capacities. However, Paul said that the natural man (meaning the man who does not have the Spirit of God indwelling him) cannot understand the things of God. He meant that sin has twisted our understanding of truth so that we cannot recognize the truth about God.

Before the teaching in the Bible about the cross can mean anything to us, the Spirit of God must open our minds. The Scriptures teach that a veil covers our minds as a result of our separation from God.

To an “outsider,” the cross must appear to be ridiculous. But to those who have experienced its transforming power, it has become the only remedy for the ills of each person, and of the world.

In spite of this available power, the gospel about Christ who was crucified is still unimportant to millions. They reflect the failure Paul analyzed when he questioned,

What have the philosopher, the writer and the critic of this world to show for all their wisdom? Has not God made the wisdom of this world look foolish? For it was after the world in its wisdom had failed to know God, that He in His wisdom chose to save all who believe by the ‘simple-mindedness’ of the Gospel message. — 1 Corinthians 1:20-21, Phillips

How can we brand the message of the cross as foolishness?

Have we done so well with our private lives, with our families, and with our society that we can claim wisdom?

It’s time we abandoned the pretense of being intellectual and recognize that our best minds are baffled by life.

God successfully changes men and women by the message that centers in the cross. We must recognize the disease of sin and claim God’s healing ointment — forgiveness.

Daily, we profit from many helps beyond our understanding. We turn the faucet on seldom thinking of the water source or how it is carried through the pipes. We may not decipher a doctor’s prescription, but we pay a high cost to fill it because we trust our physician.

In the same way we may be unable to fully comprehend the deep significance of the cross, but we can benefit from it because the Bible tells us what Christ accomplished on the cross to give us hope and assurance of eternal life.

The cross is the focal point in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Some think that God didn’t want Christ to die but was forced to adjust His plans to adapt to it. Scripture makes it very clear, however, that the cross was no afterthought with God.

Christ was delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God (Acts 2:23), and Jesus was perfectly obedient.

God designed the cross to defeat Satan, who by deception had obtained squatters’ rights to the title deed of the world. Had Satan not set himself in opposition of God there would have been no need for God to send His Son to the cross, to die for the sins of the world.

When Satan with all of his clever promises separated man from God in the Garden of Eden, he did more than deceive Adam and Eve. In some mysterious manner he began to exert a kind of pseudo-sovereignty over man. In his arrogant violence, Satan unleashed his fiercest attack to halt Christ’s ministry by putting into the hearts of the people to demand His death. But Satan was caught in his own trap; he couldn’t comprehend that God so loved the world that He sent His only son to be the sin-bearer for man’s sin.

So, what happened at the cross? The Bible says:

The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. — 1 John 3:8 NASB

Only God can thwart the plans of Satan.

What a blow was dealt to Satan! Although he is still a wily pretender, his destruction was made certain by the victory of Christ at the cross.

That through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil. — Hebrews 2:14

What seemed to be the biggest defeat of history turned into the greatest triumph.

God not only overpowered Satan and conquered the cross; Christ rescued those who Satan held captive and reconciled them to Himself. The Bible describes this divine plan:

We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew, for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. — 1 Corinthians 2:7-8

If it were possible for one man, Adam, to lead mankind to ruin, why shouldn’t it be possible for one man to redeem it? The Bible says,

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

 — 1 Corinthians 15:22

Excerpted from What Happened at the Cross? by Billy Graham, copyright Billy Graham Literary Foundation.

The devil thought he had us! He thought he was sly and conquered God. But, God already had a plan… the Cross.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 17, 2022

Whether you are regarded as somebody or nobody in your family, job, school, or church, you are somebody to God.

Whether you achieve great or small things, your infinite worth and value to Him are undiminished. God thinks highly of you and wants you to see yourself as He sees you.

He wants you to live a life of spiritual, emotional, and relational wholeness — a thriving life.

Some may say, “But that’s not biblical; the Bible says not to think highly of yourself.” That’s not quite accurate. Romans 12:3 says,

Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.

God’s Word does not tell us to have a low view of ourselves, but to have an accurate view of ourselves. How should we think of ourselves? A healthy self-image is seeing yourself as God sees you — no more and no less. That is God’s standard. That is a healthy self-image and identity. The question is, “How does God see me?”

God says that you are of infinite worth; you are loved and unique. This isn’t wishful thinking. This isn’t “self-help.” This isn’t about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps or thinking happy thoughts. It’s about truth, obedience to God, and a right understanding of His Word. It is a right understanding of what He says about you, and about living the life you were meant to live.

We can’t just drum up some subjective standard of our worth as the basis of our value and life. We need something outside of ourselves, as humans, to define our worth. There has to be an objective and universal standard of value from an outside source greater than ourselves. If you paid for a one-pound bag of flour, only to get it home and find that it contained only 1⁄4 pound, you might be confused, even angry. Say you take it back to the store and confront the store manager, who says, “That’s our standard. We call that a one-pound bag. What you call it is up to you.” That would be ridiculous, of course, because justice and commerce depend on reliable, objective, universal standards (there’s even an International Bureau of Weights and Measurements that defines such standards).

Many of us use a similarly ridiculous measurement of our own value and worth. We accept a person’s criticism or compliment as our standard. We measure our value based on our success or failure, our looks, or our status. But there is a universal and unchanging standard we can look to for our worth.

You Are of Great Value

You are valuable. Anyone who communicated to you that you are worthless or unimportant was mistaken. It is essential that you see yourself as valuable, because that is how God sees you.

Society says that our worth is based on our accomplishments, success, looks, status, retirement plan, and life insurance policy.

Even Time magazine valued the average human life at $129,000.1 That’s absurd. There is a universal and objective standard that determines our value, just as there is a standard for weights and measurements. This universal standard comes from the Creator, the manufacturer, the all-powerful God of the universe. We know this inherently as humans. This is why we abhor slavery, murder, rape, and human trafficking.

You are valuable because you are made in the image of God (see Genesis 1:27), meaning that you possess distinct dignity, value, a rational mind, moral desires, and relational capacity.

The entire earth was entrusted to you to rule and reign over (see Genesis 1:28). God created humans with His own hands and breathed into them the breath of life, unlike animals or other created things (see Genesis 2:7). He created humans as the pinnacle of His creation and said they are “very good” (see Genesis 1:31). No one in the history of the world has the same personality, characteristics, or physical attributes that you have. You are an original. God chose to create you exactly how you are with your unique gifts, personality, and physical features.

Though sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, and you were born with a sinful nature (Psalm 51:5), you were still created in the image of God (Genesis 9:6). Nothing you do or have done will ever diminish God’s love for you or your intrinsic value.

One of King David’s psalms details beautifully just how much we are worth to God.

What are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. You gave them charge of everything You made, putting all things under their authority.

— Psalm 8:4-6 NLT

You are also infinitely valuable, irreplaceable, and indispensable (1 Corinthians 12:22) because God gave His only Son to reconcile you to Himself, paying an incalculable ransom that says that you are infinitely valuable. Your value wasn’t created by Jesus’s death on the cross; it was shown by Jesus’s death on the Cross. At Calvary, God declared to Heaven, hell, and the whole earth that you are worth the gift of Jesus Christ, His dearly loved Son. If you ever put a price tag on yourself, it would have to read “Jesus,” because that is what God paid to save you (see 1 Corinthians 6:19–20; 1 Peter 1:18–19). Your value isn’t derived from anything you have done or can do; it is not a self-created value. You are of great value because that’s who our loving God created you to be. Humility is knowing who you are and Who made you who you are and giving God the glory. Your value cannot be determined by other people — not even yourself.

Only your Creator can determine the value of His creation.

You Are Lovable

The Bible speaks repeatedly and powerfully of how much you are loved. For example:

Jesus prayed to His Father, “You love them as much as You love Me” (John 17:23 NLT).

God loves you as much as He loves Jesus.

Jesus says to His followers, “As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Now remain in My love” (John 15:9).

Jesus loves you as much as God the Father loves Jesus.

The Bible says to us, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1).

God loves you so much, He made you His own son or daughter.

God’s Word declares, “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all — how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

God loves you so much, He gave everything for you.

You may have grown up feeling ignored, unwanted, despised, or even hated. The people who conveyed that image to you were in error. God created you in His image and loves you as His own child. God makes no mistakes. If He loves you — and He does — you are eternally lovable. It is essential that you see yourself as lovable because that is how God sees you.

Jesus didn’t endure rejection, ridicule, torture, and death for the sake of trash. In love, He went to the Cross to redeem and restore a relationship with that which was lost — you.

One of the most well-known verses in Scripture shows how great His love for you is, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son...” (John 3:16). God doesn’t merely tolerate or love you as a result of Christ’s work on the Cross. Rather, His love was the fuel that sent Jesus to the Cross for you.

See how Psalm 17:8 expresses God’s love and affection toward us. It says, “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.” At face value, this may not seem to carry much weight. But the Hebrew word for “apple” literally means “little man.” When you stand close enough to someone, you see a tiny reflection of yourself in that person’s pupil. You see yourself as the “apple” of his or her eye. In this psalm, David is saying this is who you are to God. You are the “little man” reflected in God’s eye. You are always in His vision. You are always the object of His affection and obsession. This is how much you are loved and valued.

1. Kathleen Kingsbury, “The Value of a Human Life: $129,000,” Time, May 20, 2008

Excerpted from Free to Thrive by Josh McDowell and Ben Bennett, copyright Josh McDowell Ministry.

Before you can truly thrive, you need to know and embrace your true value. God is the One who created you and declares your worth and He says you are loved just as much as Jesus! How amazing is that?! Know deeply in your soul how much you are loved by God the Father today and thrive in that peace!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 16, 2022

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. — 2 Timothy 4:7 

To have a life of impact, I need to be three things: a fighter, a finisher, and faithful. This sound advice was written by Paul near the end of his life, in a letter to his young protégé. 

Paul elevated these three attributes as being honorable, achievable, and necessary.

Church people are okay with “keeping the faith,” but they scratch their head at “fighting” and “finishing.” Fighting sounds too violent for the enlightened, soft American who has never been punched in the mouth. Finishing is a noble concept but not something we’re actually skilled at doing.

We prefer the entrepreneurial buzz of starting something new to the labor of finishing strong — because finishing is a fight. A new relationship brings a buzz, but a long-term marriage is a bloody fight.  

Our new American morality is always easy, but the ancient ways of God are difficult, unpopular, and capable of resulting in a body blow.  

“Keeping the faith” sounds serene and easy enough, but only because we don’t understand it. Most of us believe faith is a mental checklist of things we agree on. But faith is not just a doctrine or creed. It’s not just giving mental assent. It’s not choosing to believe stupid things that science says aren’t true.

Faith is choosing to move. It means taking a step forward without a guarantee that it’s going to work out the way you want. It means doing the things you know your God would approve of, even if other people question you. Paul never stopped moving. He never stopped improving. He never stopped chasing his goal of becoming more like Christ and introducing as many people as possible to Him. In reality, “keeping the faith” is just as backbreaking as fighting or finishing.

It’s hard to fight, finish, and keep the faith. That’s why so few people do it. This time last year, a ministry hero of mine was publicly disgraced. I have no idea what his relationship with Christ is right now. What I do know is that he stopped fighting against his sinful urges. He didn’t finish strong for the thousands of people who looked up to him. He didn’t keep the faith of honestly admitting to his struggles and finding help. Decades in the same post and no warm farewell, no final words, no future contact with the next generation of leaders. So sad and so sobering. All because he stopped fighting, didn’t finish, and wasn’t faithful.

Some types of sharks have to keep swimming in order to stay alive. Once they stop moving, they begin to suffocate. That’s also true for followers of Jesus. We have to keep moving to stay alive. We have to want more in our relationship with Christ. We have to want more for our future. We have to want to be different or we will be like everyone else who falters.

Life is a fight, and only the faithful will finish strong.  

PRAYER 

Father, I want to fight for the things that You care about. I want to finish the race that You’ve set before me. I want to keep the faith, continuing to move and grow no matter my age or stage of life. Thank You for the call and the challenge of this. Amen.  

GET MOVING 

Which attribute—fighter, finisher, or faithful — do you feel weakest in? Muscles get stronger only by working them out.

Pinpoint one way you can intentionally work out your weakest area today. If you feel weak as a fighter, choose to have that uncomfortable conversation. If you feel weak as a finisher, complete the project you’ve been putting off. If you feel weak in faithfulness, reach out for help. Take action in the next twenty-four hours.

Write the words “Well done, my good and faithful servant” in a place where you will see it daily (on your bathroom mirror or your dashboard). When you’re feeling weak, let your desire to hear these words from Christ push you forward. Read more in Matthew 25:14–30. 

Excerpted from Move Devotional by Brian Tome, copyright Brian Tome. 

Fighter, finisher, faithful — may those be our tombstone words! Let’s start today wherever we are weak. Fight, keep going, remain faithful. Jesus is with us!

Pastor Dale 

Notes of Faith January 15, 2022

I have friends who like to restore cars. I have other friends who like to restore houses. Many times we like to restore things because they are broken or because fixing something usually costs less than buying it new. But I think many enjoy the challenge of a fixer-upper because we enjoy the process of building something that is better than what was there before.  

In the book of Nehemiah, the walls of the city of Jerusalem were in ruins and the people of Israel were in exile in the land of Babylon. Nehemiah the prophet was in the presence of the king of Babylon when an amazing conversation took place. The king asked him,  

“Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill?”... Then I prayed to the God of Heaven, and I answered the king, “If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my ancestors are buried so that I can rebuild it.” — Nehemiah 2:2, Nehemiah 2:4–5 NIV 

The story goes on to say that the king not only granted Nehemiah the permission to go and rebuild the wall but gave him help to accomplish this task. Like Nehemiah, when parts of our lives need to be restored, grace comes over us to face the challenge, and we have help through the Holy Spirit to accomplish what must be done. God is the Great Builder. He’s the One who built the universe by speaking it into existence; and then, when sin entered and His creation was separated, He sent His Son into the world so a bridge might be built back to Himself. God cares about what needs to be restored in your life, and He will help you accomplish the task.  

Let’s Pray  

Lord, please remind this dad that You are with him and provide for him even when it looks like his life is in shambles. Remind him that You sent Your Son, Jesus, for his salvation and the Holy Spirit to guide him through the rebuilding process. You stand with him in all circumstances.

Please help him take on whatever lies ahead tomorrow. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.  

Continue the Connection  

As you pray this week, think of the circumstances or relationships in your life where, like Nehemiah, you need restoration. Ask the Lord to help you rebuild in those areas.  

Excerpted from Midnight Dad Devotional by Becky Thompson and Dr. Mark Pitts, copyright Mark R. Pitts and Rebecca F. Thompson. 

Let’s pray today for those who need restoration in their lives, including ourselves. God will help! He’s done it in the past and He’ll do it again. He’s the Master Builder!

Pastor Dale