Life Truly is a Vapor!

As I was about to order my lunch this afternoon I got a phone call from my mother who knew that I was about to eat lunch. She told me that my grandfather is unresponsive and an ambulance is taking him to the ER. So I immediately went up to the hospital. Here is one of my experiences while sitting with him.

Alone, watching him struggling to breath. His legs look like they should be on a corpse, dark, purple splotches all over, they are cold. I put my hands in his hands and began to tell him how much he means to me. How I am so thankful for his teaching me a strong work ethic, how to respect people and oneself. He taught me to respect authority and the law. He showed to me faithfulness to his church. He taught me the importance of initative, and the importance of studying, reading and writing. I told him that I love him and that I will be with him all the way. Therefore, I proceded to read the Gospel to Him and told him that I want someone to do that for me when I am in his state. I exhorted him to believe in the words of Jesus, in the death of Christ on the cross for the remission our sins, of His resurrection and ascension, and of the eternal hope promised to those who are born again into the adoption of God. I told of the promises of the Gospel, and again exhorted him to believe. Looking at him, I noticed he had not opened his eyes. I kept my hands in his and asked him to squeeze my hand if he heard me. I felt his fingers feeling mine. He opened one eye and looked at me. Then he closed it and his hands fell limp again. Maybe he believed, just maybe. Our God is sovereign!

He is going to be 84 this coming September 11th. A day that is marked by tragedy for him, for not only is it the day the Twin Towers fell, but it was the day his mother was buried. That makes him almost 84 years young! Around 1 AM my cousin came in to the hospital room to visit him. One of her last memories of our grandpa was from just a few weeks ago. Her memory goes a little like this: "Me and my best friend from college went to visit grandpa. As we went into the house we found him not only doing his laundry but he was watching it. Here is a man that has had all the money a man could want, all the toys he could want, all the successes, with a great influence upon the community over the years with nothing better to do with his time then to watch his laundry being washed." 84 years seems like a long time, but in all reality it truly is only a whisp of vapor. All the things that we do or do not do will count for eternity. Even the small things. Our lives will be marked by tragedies and flaws. We are flawed saints but the beauty is in the remembering of that flawed saint's life. Remembering the grace and power of God wokring through and flowing out from that flawed life. It brings Him great pleasure and it brings us unspeakable joy!

Saturday - Working with the Orphan and Widow

This coming Saturday we will embarking upon a new ministry for most of us, namely, ministering to children without a father. Often we think this type of ministry can only happen in other countries, but no, it can and should be happening here. James 1:27 says that the standard for true religion is to visit orphans and widows and stays unstained from the world. That is not just an Old Testament command, but it is primarily for us today!
In regards to this Saturday, we will meet after church on Wednesday night for a brief overview of what is going on this Saturday and what is expected of you.

Only One Life to Live - It's Only a Whisp

Last week we looked at the biblical view of history. From it we were challenged to get ourselves lost in the midst of the story. Something I thougt was interesting with this segment was how it fit into what we have not only learned from the other videos but also what we learned from the book of Deuteronomy. If you can remember as far back as the end of May I began our study of Deuteronomy by putting it in historical contexts. Then we brought it out practically in our lives suggesting that we all have a history. That is, namely, we all have a road actions and attitudes that follow everywhere we go. We add to this history everyday, even though we don't think about the reality that we are in fact in the midst of our own biography.
Therefore I am lead to speak a little more intentionally regarding the importance of each person's history. First, we must ask ourselves: what is life anyway? The Word of God answers this quite frankly: "It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." (James 4:14, KJV). It is a vapor, a whisp of the wind! Hence the Lord has put the reality that our lives are brief into perspective. Therefore we see that life is short, it is all before one minute, then all behind the next. Secondly we must ask: how can something so short count for so much? I will answer that by quoting Jesus: "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." (Mark 8:35, KJV). Thus it is safe to deduce from this verse that Jesus counts life as possibly being significant. Now I am not talking about being significant in accopmlishing amazing things or the indulgence of worldly pursuits. Rather I am talking about what is significant in light of the gospel, the truth. Therefore, we can conclude that life is both short and significant. That being the case, what are you going to do with your short life? Or in other words, what is your biography going to be like? Will it be titled 'Loser, a Life of Insignificance'? Or will it be titled 'The Greatest Treasure, a Life of Complete Joy'? We only have one life to live; one life to lose. What are living your life, your history for? Remember, everyone has a history, that is, a road of actions and attitudes that follow everywhere one may go. What is your story life?

Who is God?

This is quite a perplexing question. Last night we thought about this question and went to the Word of God to find answers. So who is He?

During our discussion time, I brought up an interesting point concerning why people don't like church or Christianity. Now we all know that there are people in the world who claim that they do not believe in God, yet at the same time we see that they actually do believe in a god, whether that god is in some religion or in themselves. Looking out over our generation it's easy to see many who are disillusioned with the church. Why? Well, I think it isn't so much that they do not believe in God but that they have a hard time believing in the Church. Just ask someone you know that used to attend church why they stopped. Most of the time they are going to tell you a story of how someone from the church wronged them or they discovered hypocrisy in the church. It takes a lot of faith to believe in the church does it not? One of the most historic creeds of the church is the Apostle's Creed. This creed was used to summarize the message of the Bible, the Gospel. This Creed was very important; it was so important that people had to recite it at baptism. There is a phrase at the end of the creed that usually gets overlooked or gives people the heeby geebies because of their association with the terminology. The Creed begins with 'I believe,' so everything that comes after that is prefixed with 'I believe.' The last section of the Creed states 'I believe...in the holy catholic church.' Did you hear that? They had to state that they believe in the church! Now here is my disclaimer, 'catholic' is definitely not referring to the Roman Catholic church, rather it is meaning 'universal church.'
Now I want you to know that by no means am I seeking to bash the church, the beautiful bride of Christ. Rather I love her and want to see her become more beautiful. I do recognize that I am counted among that number in the bride of Christ, and I love her. Therefore, I want to call her to that attention. When we ask the question 'Who is God?' we are not going to find an exhaustive answer, but rather we are quickly going to find out more about ourselves. We are the church, the called out ones from every tongue and tribe and nation, all over the world. We are called to literally be the body of Christ. Do you get that? We are His body here on earth and He is our head. He moves us, His body parts, by telling us what to do and how to conduct ourselves through His Word and His Spirit. So how are you doing? Are living out the call on your life? Can people around you say, 'Yes, that guy/girl is definitely part of the church?