Fear and Trembling

Thanks to a great lady , I had the privilege of listening to the stream video of this message from John Piper at the 2008 Resurgence Conference . I found it helpful, and the question and answer period at the end of last night’s messages made staying up late worth it.

William F. Buckley, Jr. passed away. He will be missed.

"We tell people that the cross means we are forgiven. Jesus has paid the penalty of our sins. And that Jesus' resurrection means we will have life after death and be with God in Heaven. That has been our message. But it has retained only two dimensions: we have neglected the Good News about the Kingdom in the here and now. The powerful experience and explanation of the inbreaking rule of God, in which people were being set free from sin, sickness, and spiritual oppression and even the spirit of a nation was being changed, has been largely lost. We've replaced it with a much more individualistic message about freedom from guilt and fire insurance after we die." - Rick Richardson, Reimagining Evangelism (InterVarsity, 2006) I have long struggled with the role of good works in the Christian life. I have struggled with the issue, and this is obvious from reading some of my posts. I am of the opinion that good works done by the Christian are not meritorious, but at the s...

Thanks to “Between Two Worlds” for the link to an interview with the Getty’s . I also like their 2006 album, especially this song. I purchased the “In Christ Alone” CD after singing the song the CD is named for at a church service . It is very powerful and seems to be centered on Christ’s Cross.

I am still listening to Max Lucado’s 3:16: The Numbers Of Hope . I found a great example. He discusses the racing team of Dick and Rick Hoyt , a team that has an impressive competition history . I’ll let Max tell the story: Team Hoyt consists of a father-son squad: Dick and Rick. They race. They race a lot. Sixty-four marathons. Two hundred ans six triathlons. Six triathlons at Ironman distance…Since 1975, they’ve crossed nearly a thousand finish lines… Team Hoyt loves races. But only half of team Hoyt can run. Dick, the dad, can. But Rick’s legs don’t work, nor does his speech. At his birth in 1962, the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, starving oxygen from his brain, stealing coordination from his body… But Rick wanted to run. At age fifteen, he asked his dad if they could enter a five mile benefit race. Dick was not a runner, but he was a father, so he loaded his son in a three-wheeled wheelchair, and off they went. They haven’t stopped since… We bring to the spiritual race wh...

I am reading a book by Max Lucado called 3:16: The Numbers Of Hope . Well, really I am listening to it on tape. I am finding this to be encouraging devotional listening. I especially like his discussion of the “whosoever” and “whoever” passages of the Bible, including John 3:16 , the focus of the book. He references Mt. 10:32 , Mt. 10:39 , Mk. 3:35 , Mk. 16:16 , Jn. 3:36 , Jn. 4:14 , Jn. 6:37 , Jn. 11:26 , and Rev. 22:17 . To which I would add Isaiah 1:18-20 , Isaiah 55:1, 6-7 ; Hosea 6:1 , Mt. 11:28 , and Rev. 3:20 (Note that Rev. 3:20 refers to Christians; they can come too.). Lucado is expansive: Whoever unfurls 3:16 as a banner for the ages. Whoever unrolls the welcome mat of heaven to humanity. Whoever invites the world to God. Jesus could have so easily narrowed the scope … but he used no qualifier. The pronoun is wonderfully indefinite. After all, who isn’t a whoever . Whoever makes it clear: God exports his grace worldwide. For those who attempt to restrict it, Jesus has a...

Thanks to Between Two Worlds for directing me to Tim Keller’s web site in conjunction with his new book . That book is next on my list to purchase.

Let’s prayerfully remember the current crisis in Kenya .

Thanks to World Vision for the audio-visual Experience: AIDS web site . I hope to see the full display sometime soon.

Interesting commentary over at Breakpoint . I hope we do not politicize our response to the AIDS epidemic.

I’ve had a chance to get back to work and family life since returning from Peru. I don’t see how career missionaries every move back to the U. S. Nothing looks the same to me, and I hope it never does. I’ve been under some serious spiritual attack since returning. I keep playing over in my mind all of the things I didn’t do right while I was there. All of my sins seem the more heinous as well. It’s the same set of things I think when I hear sermons preached that tell me what I should do without reminding me of what Christ did. Is it an attack from Satan? I don’t know. My flesh is fully capable of leading me down the path of guilt and despair. The Holy Spirit also brings conviction, but He does not remind us of sins we have repented of ( John 16:8 , Romans 8:15 ). I’ll assume it is a demonic attack for this post. What is the best response to an attack like this? What do we do when Satan brings to mind our sin and labels us by it? It hurts to think of myself as a spendthrift or as slothf...

I am back in Tennessee at my home, and my wife and daughter have never looked prettier. I have read back over my posts while in Peru, corrected the spelling errors as best I can, and am working on some future posts. Click the label at left or below for Operation Christmas Child to find all of them. I also forwarded some interview questions to my roommate, Evans, the pastor from Kenya. He has promised to do a blog interview with me that I will publish as soon as possible. Thank you to those from my church and community who prayed for our team on our journeys.

I will get on the "red eye" flight to Atlanta in a few hours. This is my last post from Peru. I am still sorting through all of the week’s experiences. The simple fact is that I have not yet cried enough tears to be able to tell the stories right. I am wonderfully heartbroken. I don’t expect everyone to understand that, but it´s the only way I can find to express my emotions. It is wonderful to be a part of the things that have happened here this week. I have been blessed to make a difference in some children’s lives. Operation Christmas Child (OCC) sent 200,000 boxes to Peru this year, and I was glad to play a small part in that effort. But I also know that there are over 8.7 million children under the age of 15 in Peru. OCC only distributed boxes to 2.2% of these children. There is so much more to do. I have seen the churches we worked with to distribute boxes. I have seen the children. I have learned of their plight. I will never be the same. I will get ready to communica...

For a long time Operation Christmas Child (OCC) has been known for making miles and miles of smiles. I know now from personal experience just how bright and beautiful those smiles are. The children of Peru smile with a brilliance and beauty that stands out in stark contrast to their situations. Many are from broken homes. Sometimes when a couple divorces in Peru the father feels no obligation to the children of the marriage. The mother will often go on to marry another, and she then shuns the children herself. These children can end up on the street, taking care of themselves. Some sniff a type of glue used to join soles to the bottom of shoes. They become addicted and often do permanent damage to themselves. (For more information on the street children, see here , here and here .) Many of the children we saw were from the areas outside Lima. Families build homes as money becomes available, so they live in unfinished houses. The areas outside Lima are technically desert. The terrain i...

As with the last few posts, I am still in Lima, Peru, with an Operation Christmas Child (OCC)team. I had a wonderful opportunity today as we passed out shoeboxes. A pastor had asked someone from our group to share with the children how the boxes came to them from America. This is the substance of what I said: Good afternoon. My name is Juan. This is how a box comes to you. A family buys gifts. They do their best to buy gifts and toys that will make you happy. They want to show Christ's love. They bring their gifts to our church in the U. S. A truck carries them from our church to a place where they are cared for. A boat carries them to your country. And Christ's church gives them to you. We give the boxes to show the love of Christ. We want you to know the love of God, the Friendship of Jesus Christ in your hearts, and the power of the Holy Spirit in your lives. Thank you for the opportunity to give to you. I didn't say anything that profound, but I was overwhelmed by the o...

I'm still on a short-term missions trip with Operation Christmas Child in Lema, Peru , to help deliver gift-filled shoeboxes to children. I meet my roommate for the week last night, and I had the chance to talk to him a little before exhaustion got the best of me. His name is Evans Sabwami, and he is from Kenya. His stories of growing up in Kenya held my attention. It is not often that you meet someone who improvised with so much ingenuity in a difficult circumstance. Please be in prayer for Kenya . Evans informed me of the violence and political unrest sweeping through his homeland. (See here and here .) It's a scary world we live in. Evans is a pastor at a Vinyard church in New York. May God empower Evans´ ministry and help him to honor the gospel message. This was our first day to hand out shoeboxes. I was overwhelmed. I had been warned that this is often the case, but I had no idea. Our first stop was Hogar de Cristo Orphanage in the Cercado area of Lima. This orphanage ...

This is the first day of my trip with Operation Christmas Child (OCC) to Peru. The plane flight was fun. I had the chance to meet a missionary from Peru named Keith. He ministers to the Quechua to the northeast of Lima. He is a friendly and helpful person who showed me the way through immigration and customs at the airport. He need our prayers. I was able to put him in touch with some of the leadership of OCC for a possible distribution of shoeboxes in his area of ministry. For part of the flight I sat next to Mary Dameron. She is a long term spokeswoman for OCC with a strong (!) personality. I hope to be able to post more of her stories when I have more time. Please say a prayer. We go on our first trip to distribute gift0filled shoeboxes in a few minutes.

I leave for Lima, Peru, this coming Monday for a short-term missions trip with Operation Christmas Child (OCC). OCC is a ministry of Samaritan’s Purse, an international relief ministry headed by Franklin Graham. OCC will distribute over 7,000,000 gift-filed shoeboxes this year to children in over 90 countries. In preparation for this trip, I was asked by OCC in an e-mail note, “Why are you excited about going on this distribution?” I’d like to share my answer. I am excited about going because of the smiles. I'll never forget the first time I ever saw a picture of a bunch of kids gathered around opening shoeboxes. Their smiles touched my heart. You can't help but want to make a kid smile. I am also excited about supporting the local churches and distribution teams in Peru. I want to see those smiles through all of eternity, and the only way to do that is to help share the good news about what Christ has done to win our salvation for us in His life and suffering. I want to shar...

This is my last post on Mark Dever’s book The Gospel and Personal Evangelism . It’s not that I can find nothing else to write about; it’s just that I don’t want to give away the whole book. Its direct and easy to understand message will make it a valuable book for those who read it. The most useful of the chapters is titled: “What Isn’t Evangelism?” The part I would most like to see my own denomination read and apply follows. “… An account of a changed life is a wonderful and inspiring thing, but it’s the gospel of Jesus Christ that explains what it’s all about and how it happened. And it’s the gospel that turns sharing a testimony into evangelism.” - Mark Dever in The Gospel and Personal Evangelism , Crossway Books: Wheaton, Illinois, 2007, p. 73. I get tired of some testimonies. Often I am left with the impression that the testifier has straightened out his life and has had no further problems since he made the decision to turn his life over to Christ. It’s as if his ‘total su...